


JSTC is Served

by TheLonelyWillow



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Isekai, No ROBs here nope, Self-Insert, Teasers & Trailers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-02-28 11:11:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13270215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLonelyWillow/pseuds/TheLonelyWillow
Summary: Four friends, a new world, more death and disaster than you can shake a stick at and no brakes whatsoever. What could possibly go wrong?(Collaboration RWBY SI between Teninshigen, PSIness11, Xanothos and myself; Currently released trailers: "J', 'S' ,'T', 'C')(Cross-posted on FF.net, spacebattles, and sufficient velocity)





	1. 'C' Trailer

**Author's Note:**

> Written by PSIness11, author of "Speeding Through Life," a Fairy Tail SI available on both Spacebattles and Fanfiction.net. If you want an enjoyable SI in which Juvia is best girl with the proper characterization that she well and truly deserves, I insist you go read it. Right now.

If you asked most people about the Emerald Forest, one of the first things they’d tell you is ‘Never go there alone.’ It saw most of its use as a training ground for the up-and-coming Huntsmen and Huntresses of Beacon Academy. It was a lair for Grimm of all stripes and not forgiving terrain to begin with; going in alone was foolhardy in the extreme. Most of the academy’s teachers would have been horrified to discover someone trekking there alone - _especially_ at night.

None of this had managed to stop one student in particular. Wandering through the Emerald Forest, seeing by moonlight as the clock had recently struck midnight, a figure in a black tracksuit and beanie faded from one shadow to another. Blond hair protruded from beneath the hat in some places and when he stepped into a moonbeam his blue eyes would flash as they swept back and forth in search of something.

The only part of him that remained obvious at all times was the weapon on his back. Foolhardy though they might have been, the student wasn’t fool enough to go into the Emerald Forest unarmed at any hour of the day or night - and he could _never_ have been mistaken for unarmed with the greatsword strapped to his back. Although ‘greatsword’ might not have been quite the right term.

It was, lacking any better adjectives, _titanic._ It was too big to be called a mere ‘sword’. In reality, it was the illegitimate child of a mountain and a slag pile. Nearly two feet across and just as long as the student was tall _before_ taking the hilt into account, it sliced what light fell on it into a scattered mess as if _daring_ the light to illuminate it properly. It was functionally dysfunctional, an utterly impossible weapon that gave no regard to decoration or aesthetics beyond the simple imprint near its hilt which proclaimed the weapon’s name. **‘Iron Curtain’.**

The student let out a whine, absent-mindedly kicking a stone out of his path. “Of course _I’m_ stuck doing the grunt work. ‘Oh, you should help Professor Port, Cole; it’ll be fun! I’m sure he’ll give you extra credit!’”

The falsetto trailed off as Cole growled, continuing to mutter under his breath as he stalked further into the forest. He left footprints almost an inch deep behind him - though how much of that was the weight of his weapon and how much was just his anger leaking through was up for debate. One resembled the other quite a bit - at least, as far as subtlety was concerned.

“Oh yeah, I’ll _just_ walk into the forest!” He proclaimed, throwing his hands up for a moment. “Risk _my_ life so our team gets extra credit. Some friends I have.” He sighed, hanging his a bit. “They can’t send me on _all_ the errands just ‘cause I never watched RWBY…”

If there was one thing Cobalt Reynolds had come to regret not doing before he was thrown into Remnant, it was watching RWBY. He knew approximately jack shit about anything to do with the series in the beginning (and Jack had long ago skipped town). It had left him much less prepared than his friends for dealing with all the shit they had...though, how ‘prepared’ you could be for being thrown headlong into another world was debatable. 

A low growl cut through the night and ended Cole’s mutterings in an instant. His head immediately spun to the origin of the sound, locking with a pair of glowing red eyes in the undergrowth. As another growl sprung up, he carefully backed into the center of the trail he’d been following. Two pairs of eyes like the flames of hell became visible in front of him and closed in. The growling continued to grow louder, the very ground beneath Cole’s feet beginning to shake with their combined rumble.

A single hand rose over Cole’s shoulder and gripped the hilt of his weapon tightly. The rest of him tensed in anticipation.

Two massive shapes emerged from the forest’s greenery as if birthed from the shadows of the leaves themselves. Each was a hulking, quadrupedal that stood at least twice as tall at the shoulder as Cole himself. Their forms were covered in thick black fur, with the only exceptions being the white armor that was scattered over their forms. Bone-like white armor-plates were dotted liberally across the creatures’ backs and limbs, while claws of the same material protruded from their paws. A forest of sharp spines protruded from the creatures’ backs and the tops of their skulls were covered in a red-marked helmet of the same white armor.

The two Ursa Major began to slowly circle Cole, each of them continuing to growl in the kind of registers reserved for boulders rubbing together. In response Cole’s grip on his weapon tightened and he began to slowly draw it.

Iron Curtain buried its tip in the ground with an immense _thud_ and a raised cloud of dust, dirt and stone giving way to its sheer weight. Taking that as a signal, the two Ursa let out massive roars and launched themselves forward at the Huntsman-in-training.

Cole grit his teeth and twisted his upper body, heaving with his arms to bring Iron Curtain around in a block. The first Ursa’s claws raked across the blade and created sparks but nothing else, the blade refusing to give in. The _second_ Ursa’s attack, though, came from behind him - there was no way to get his blade around in time.

Yet, before the claws could make mincemeat of his back, the skin of Cole’s back beneath the tracksuit lit up. Glowing blue-green lines rapidly traced themselves over the entire surface of his back. Then, when the Ursa’s claws made contact, there was the tearing sound of cloth ripping - and a _shrieking_ not unlike metal-on-metal.

The whole top of the tracksuit was ripped apart - but Cole’s back bore nothing more than some faint red lines where the claws had passed.

With a roar, Cole spun his whole body around, dragging Iron Curtain along for the ride. The flat of the massive blade came around with more than enough force to knock the massive Ursa on its side when it hit, sending it reeling. 

The first Ursa raised its paw to try and take advantage of the opening, swinging it down towards Cole. As it came in, the same glowing tracery as had lit up his back flowed along Cole’s arms and over his hands. Those same arms then heaved Iron Curtain once more - but this time, Cole’s strength seemed to have increased tenfold, as the massive blade vanished from sight until it slammed home in the Grimm’s torso, brought to a halt only because it had to pass through the armor plates first.

The Ursa Major was sent bouncing off to the side as the blade came to a halt, enough imparted momentum staying with it to move even a creature of its size. Right on its trail came Cole, his legs alight with tracery, his feet cracking the earth where they came down. A crater was blasted from the dirt as he leaped skywards, bringing Iron Curtain down in front of him hard enough that he somersaulted. The revolution continued, gaining speed as teen and blade vanished in a constant blur of black and silver that resembled a flying sawblade as it flew toward the massive Grimm. 

The Ursa Major looked up from its resting place just in time to be met with Iron Curtain’s blade. Its skull and armor plates didn’t manage to stop it this time, and Iron Curtain cut into the earth once more as Cole’s rotation stopped in a moment. In front of him, the distinct halves of a once-massive Grimm fell apart, already beginning to blow away into smoke.

The trainee Huntsman let out a breath, shaking his head to clear the dizziness and admire his work. That moment of distraction proved a mistake though - a Beowolf abruptly launched itself over the undergrowth in front of him and clamped its jaw down on the arm holding Iron Curtain. His Aura flared up around where it was trying to gnaw his arm off and the tracery of his Semblance supplemented it.

It was only that passive defense that prevented him from losing the limb entirely.

Even uninjured though, Cole couldn’t move his arm. The Beowolf had him in a death grip and _refused_ to let go. That couldn’t be borne of course. So Cole cocked his left fist, alight with tracery, then let it fly right into the eye-socket of the lupine monster’s skull-helmet. His fist punched straight through the bone and into the shadow-flesh beneath, launching the dying monster away to dissolve into the air.

Cole rolled his arm in its socket, making sure it hadn’t been wrenched too badly. As he did he grimaced; more and more growls were sounding from the forest around him. Soon a swarm of glowing red eyes became obvious in the shadows of the plants and a full pack of Beowolves melted out of the shadows. In their midst was the second Ursa Major...and _all_ of them had their sights locked right on Cole. 

“Just my fucking luck.” He muttered to himself. One hand ripped Iron Curtain from the ground and levelled it at the Grimm horde. The other extended itself forwards, palm-up, and beckoned with the fingers.

With that gesture, the mass of Grimm exploded into a discordant symphony of roars and charged in one cohesive flow.

As they came, Cole’s entire body came alight with tracery, Reinforcing him to the max. A trail of devastated earth was launched into the air behind him as he kicked off into a forward charge, the trailing edge of Iron Curtain screaming its bloodlust as it tore the air. The first wave of Grimm didn’t even slow it; the metal cleaved Grimm-flesh like butter and barely noticed the difference between it and armor.

The swing turned into a full rotation to bring the blade around again - and again, and again and _again._ With every strike, the Grimm in Iron Curtain’s path were reduced to chunks and scattered to the winds as they dissolved. Clouds of dust were raised in the swings’ paths, trenches were carved in the earth when the weapon came _near._ Yet despite the devastation being wrought upon them, the Grimm continued their charge. If anything they became _more_ energetic as their kin were slain.

The Ursa Major joined the next wave with a roar , charging through the Beowolves and knocking them aside as it thundered forward. Its paw came down as Iron Curtain came up, and where the two collided the ensuing shockwave scattered the surrounding Beowolves. A deadlock ensued - monstrous strength and weight against the fully-augmented student.

Cole broke the clash first, whipping Iron Curtain around his body into a wild slash. The sword carved a deep gash in an armor plate that then buckled, but didn’t get any further. Undeterred, it bounced right off and swung around again, this time from a new direction. The process kept repeating as Cole rained blows on the massive Grimm without any real success. It was forced backwards but didn’t sustain any real harm.

 _‘Damnit - I can’t cut it like before, I don’t have the momentum!’_ He cursed to himself, barely giving a Beowolf a second thought when Iron Curtain sliced through it on its path to attack the Ursa Major once more. _‘I’ll have to-’_

His thoughts were broken off when the Ursa Major suddenly broke through the flurry of slashes, slamming its clawed arm into Cole’s torso. The Huntsman-in-training was thrown backwards even with the weight of Iron Curtain, skipping along the ground like a stone across water but with only have the grace.

Managing to turn his fifth bounce into a twist, he brought Iron Curtain down into the ground and let his momentum bleed out through the blade as it cut a trench in dirt, stone and roots. Climbing to his feet from the kneeling position he’d been left in, he wrenched his sword from the earth in a shower of dirt and took its weight on his shoulder. Then he pulled the trigger near the end of the hilt, there was a loud _click_ , and the massive blade began to shift.

Seams that had been hidden before became suddenly visible as the weapon’s components were rearranged. The blade itself split lengthwise down the center, the two large metal plates composing it rotating to face the earth and then digging themselves as Cole took a knee in to form a crude bipod. A barrel just as long as the blade had been was revealed to have been hidden within the sword, connected to the hilt. The hilt itself also split in half - one half rested on and against Cole’s shoulder, while the other folded down into a grip where the trigger resided.

Cole aimed down the barrel of his Anti-Tank Rifle (classed as ‘Anti-Whatever-The-Hell-It’s-Pointed-At’ on the firearms scale) and grinned as he locked eyes with the Ursa Major. “Ready for some education you ugly _bitch?”_  

A split-second appearance of confusion on the Ursa’s part only served to widen Cole’s grin. “Oh? Haven’t you heard the new sensation that’s sweeping the nation?”

Blue-green lines traced themselves outward from Cole’s torso. They flooded down his legs and congregated at the knees and shins; they formed a tight weave over his right shoulder where the stock was perched; they lit up his arms and hands where they held the weapon. Everywhere they touched became More, strengthened and enhanced in all the ways that defined them.

His finger curled around the trigger. _“Bitches. LOVE._ **_CANNONS.”_ **

_Click._

In a very short period of time, everything between the muzzle of Iron Curtain’s barrel and some undefined point in the middle distance underwent a violent disassembly via involuntarily combustion.

That is to say, it blew the fuck up.

Trees were blown apart and began to topple even as they caught fire. Beowolves were lit up from within and burst outwards like Grimm fireworks. Then the Ursa Major was hit, and it simultaneously exploded and caught fire before exploding again. At what point it actually _died_ was debatable.

Cole let out the breath he had been holding as he stood up, hoisting Iron Curtain with him. Folding the grip component of the handle back up to form Iron Curtain’s hilt triggered the re-assembly of the blade. A few seconds later the oversized sword was whole once more and Cole went to return it to the harness on his back. A second later he remembered that the Ursa Major had shredded it earlier. “Dammit.”

With his sword resting on his shoulder the Huntsman-in-training looked around him. He saw the burning, shattered trees. He saw the wrecked undergrowth that was _also_ on fire. He jumped a bit as a branch fell down from overhead and buried itself halfway in the earth.

It was, of course, on fire.

As the howls of burning Grimm began to fill the air, Cobalt Reynolds looked upon what he had wrought - and he saw that it was good. He whistled. “Note to self; Armor-Piercing rounds plus Burn Dust equals _big_ fucking explosion.”

The branch that had buried itself upright in the earth reached the point where its sap boiled. It exploded.

As splinters bounced off his Aura, Cole winced. “Aaaand fire. _Lots_ of fire.”

It looked like a good swathe of the Emerald Forest was burning at this point and more was catching with every passing second. The burning Grimm were probably helping spread the flames as they ran around in a panic…and the sheer distance the AP round had travelled, burning all the way, probably hadn’t helped.

Cole shrugged. “Well, I guess I’d better get out of here before any more Grimm show up…” He muttered, turning to the one direction that wasn’t totally on fire yet - namely directly behind him - and started to walk off. He stumbled only a few steps in and took a moment to catch his breath. “Shit…” He gasped. “I’ve gotta stop relying on Reinforcing everything...it’s taking way too much of a toll on my body.”

He started off again but was quickly interrupted by the ringing of his Scroll. He let out a weary sigh; he already knew who was calling. With some hesitation he retrieved it from a zip-up pocket on his tracksuit trousers, extended it one-handed, brought the device up to his ear and tapped the screen with his thumb to answer the call. _“Heelllo~?”_

The response from the caller was a sigh which managed to communicate, simultaneously: a complete lack of surprise for the call’s necessity; a deep disappointment in the previous fact; an acknowledgement that somehow, someway, there was going to be no more sleep that night; and a deep-rooted desire to _reach through the Scroll and_ ** _beat the shit out of Cole._** _“Cole.”_ Was the first word the caller uttered. **_“Why_** _is the Emerald Forest on fire?”_

Cole considered his answer with all the tact born of months he’d spent with his friend and team leader. “...I’ll tell you - but you can’t be mad at me.”

Anyone listening closely enough would be able to hear the Scroll on the other end of the call groaning in protest as the person holding it tightened their grip. _“I swear to Oum, Sheogorath and_ any other deity you care to name _, if you tell me that you were ‘taking an enthusiastic walk through the woods, I_ will _tell Ozpin that you were behind The De-Caf Incident.”_

Cole sighed and mourned the loss of one of his favourite jokes. “Well if you _really_ want to know, I just did what you told me to. I went to get extra credit from Professor Port.”

“...Somehow, I doubt that whatever Grimm you managed to kill will make up for the fact that _half of Beacon’s backyard is_ **_AFLAME!”_ ** The caller’s voice rose into a shout. That was fairly rare; Cole’s team leader tended to be very level-spoken and quite mellow. Apparently 1AM firestorms weren’t good for his composure.

For a moment, there was only the sound of deep breaths being taken over the scroll. The next words spoken were with the carefully calm tones of someone who is trying to remember all the reasons they shouldn’t try and garrotte their teammate the next time they’re in the same room. “Anyhow, what’s done is done. I will inform Professor Port of your efforts and Professor Goodwitch of the... _results_ of your efforts. _Hopefully,_ your honorable intentions will be a mitigating factor in whatever punishment she doles out.”

“Thank you _very_ much.” Cole replied cheerfully. “I’ll cook for a week if you get me off scot-free.”

A tired chuckle emanated from the Scroll’s speaker. “Cobalt, I’m a member of the Survey Corps. _Not_ a miracle worker.” There was a pause. “For your cooking, however...I’ll see what I can do.”

“Being able to talk the talk doesn’t mean you can walk the walk, Johan.”

_“BITCH I SPIN LIKE LEVI!”_

Cole, who had almost flung the Scroll away from his ear, brought it back up and heard the dial tone. “Huh. He hung up on me.” He chuckled, closing the Scroll awkwardly with one hand and tucking it away in the same pocket he’d taken it from.

Blue-green lines traced their way down his legs as he launched himself into a sprint back towards Beacon, quickly working out the way he’d need to take to get around all the fire. Even as he ran through the smoke, he couldn’t help but smile.

 

**\----------------**

**. * . * . * C**

**\----------------**


	2. 'T' Trailer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written by Teninshigen, author of "Music of the Spheres," and "The Light Unfettered." Both incredibly amazing, and I declare with no shame: he's a better writer than me.

_ Flip. Flip. Flip. _

The rustle of turning pages drifted through leafy boughs on a gentle breeze. The canopy of the Emerald Forest swayed to and fro like the waves of a viridian ocean and scattered sunlight hither and yon upon the ground far below. Perched almost high enough to breach that surface was the source of the noise; a book with a matte-black cover and a title emblazoned in red to accompany the similarly coloured band that wrapped around its lower sixth or so.

The book was cradled in the hands of a black-haired teen with murky green eyes that were currently jumping from one written line to another with all the speed of a seasoned reader. He was reclined on a particularly wide branch in the canopy, his ankles crossed as if he were in a hammock rather than dozens of metres off the ground on a swaying branch.

Most of him was concealed by a cloak coloured in the greens and purples of mountain heather. It bore a series of thin, parallel black lines from the collar to the hem. Visible through the opening at the cloak’s front was a white dress shirt and clothing his legs were pair of well-pressed trousers the grey of storm clouds. To complete his outfit a pair of shiny black dress-shoes reflected the dappled sunlight from near the forking end of the branch.

_ Flip. Flip. Flip. _

As he turned to the next page the teen clicked his teeth. “And of  _ course _ he decides the best way to comfort her is to sleep with her.” He sighed, shaking his head and stretching momentarily. Despite the swaying of the branch and how precarious his perch was, he didn’t show the slightest worry that he might fall. “I’m not even sure this was worth the ass-kicking Blake’s going to deliver when I give it back...” He paused. “Well…unless I give it to Jaune, maybe? Or Pyrrha?”

The teen tapped his chin with the book and a slightly manic grin twitched at the corner of his lips.  _ “Nora?” _

After a moment of consideration he grimaced and shook his head. “Nah, can’t do that to Ren. Besides, we’ve already made a big enough mess of things  _ without _ triggering Nora’s chibi-tendencies.” Eyeing Ninjas of Love for a moment longer he moved it inside his cloak and focussed for a moment.

A dark glow suffused the space of the cloak between two of its lines. The ribbon of fabric, one of many which lay atop one another to create a solid cloak, rolled upwards and wrapped around the book as it did so. In a couple of seconds the tome was secured inside the cloak and the two ribbons on either side of the gap drew closer together until there was no sign that anything had changed in the cloak at all.

With a satisfied nod Damian Thistle, first-year student at Beacon Academy, rolled to his feet on the branch and stretched once more. A series of cracks sounded from his back and neck.  _ “Ah, _ that’s better.” A soft purple light played up around the areas where his bones had realigned themselves and the slight pain there vanished. “Well, at least I know now.” He consoled himself. “Maybe if I head back now I’ll have recovered from Blake’s beating before the library shuts…”

With that thought in mind he turned to the side of the branch and took a step forward into empty air with all the nonchalance of a pedestrian stepping onto an empty road. Instead of obeying natural law and plummeting to the ground below however, his body tilted forward with the step while remaining anchored to the branch.

He walked around the circumference of the branch as if it were a level surface until he was standing upside-down on its lower side. Then he wandered along the branch to the trunk which spawned it and stepped onto the sheer surface with just as much ease. Half a minute’s walk straight down later he took the ninety-degree step onto the grass of the Emerald Forest without once seeming to pay his casual violation of the laws of physics even the slightest mind.

With the slightly distracted look of someone who was imagining all the ways they were likely to be assaulted by a teenaged cat-girl when they got home Damian set off towards Beacon Academy. He oriented himself with the ease of someone who had seen the layout of his surroundings often enough to dream it in perfect detail, pulled his arms inside his amalgamation of a cloak to tuck his hands into his pockets, and then began to sing absent-mindedly under his breath.  _ “They see you as small and helpless…” _

The amorphous cloak, with its darkly patterned colours, almost made the teen seem to vanish into the shade of the trees as he passed beneath them. Yet his wasn’t the only form that tread the dark patches of the forest. The shadows ebbed and flowed in the undergrowth surrounding Damian, occasional lances of sunlight illuminating bone-white plates while flashes of red sparks peered from the dark. The soft  _ thud _ of footsteps was muffled by the greenery even if Damian were paying enough attention to listen to it.  _ “They see you as just a child…” _

Drawn to the light of a human soul like moths to a flame, the Grimm circled. Eyes of red shone from within masks of bone-white as snarling growls passed the teen’s ears seemingly unnoticed. By his expression he was off in his own world – not paying the slightest attention to what he saw or heard. He was so disconnected that even the trembling of the earth beneath his feet which indicated an Ursa growling went unremarked.  _ “Surprised when they find out-” _

The first of the Beowolves burst from the shadows of the undergrowth with a roar. Its six-foot frame was as black as the gaps between stars – at complete contrast with the sterile white of the material which formed the spiked armoured plates which covered its back and the claws which protruded from oversized canine paws. The hellish scarlet glow emanating from its eyes and open mouth was the same shade as the lines which decorated its skull-mask; all the brighter for the monochrome scale that composed the rest of the creature.

The creature of Grimm closed the gap between its starting point and the teen like greased lightning. The shallow arc of its flight lined up its jaws perfectly with the teen’s neck as it prepared to tear out the human’s throat-

Then Damian moved. A spin to the side which took him out of the Beowolf’s reach began the instant it leapt and left him facing it once more as it began to pass his position. Simultaneously his right hand emerged from the cloak – but it wasn’t bare any longer.

A glove the colour of a thistle’s flower covered the appendage – the twin to one worn on his left hand. Emblazoned on its back was a stylised spider with a cloud on its back, outlined in white…and at the tips of its fingers the light caught and reflected from something too thin to see.

Grimm couldn’t feel pain. Not like humans. Yet the Beowolf still registered a kind of pressure around its muzzle and neck before both were abruptly bisected.

As the upper and lower part of the creature’s snout - alongside the rest of its head and eventually its body - crashed to the ground, Damian cracked his fingers in the manner of a pianist. Then he crooked his fingers and jerked his hand to either side, revealing a series of wires stretched between his hands and pulled taut.  _ “That a warrior will soon run wild~” _

The remainder of the pack broke cover with a joint howl, flooding from the shadows. Faster than any creature born of nature they loped along with the gait of wolves. Every step was a chance to leap or pounce, every movement was aimed at closing the distance between them and their prey as fast as possible.

As the first of their number drew close enough to lunge in for a bite Damian launched his knee upward, smashing its jaw shut hard enough to break its teeth. Spinning on his grounded foot he drove his heel into the monster’s skull hard enough that his specially reinforced shoes shattered the armour and tossed the Beowolf aside. Another Beowolf charged in to take the opening – but a dark glow sprang to life around the raised foot and it suddenly shot downwards with supernatural speed. The dress shoe slammed into the monster’s forward-left leg with enough force to snap it completely as Damian thrust his right hand forward and flicked his wrist.

The recoil of the kick seemed to affect Damian more than it should have done as he flew back several feet, gaining distance from the swarm of Grimm approaching. As he went he pulled back on the wires he’d left behind, neatly bisecting the injured monster’s head from the base of the neck out through the snout. While it collapsed and began to dissolve, he turned to the next Beowolf.

This one ran on its hind legs, brandishing its claws for a swipe that would shred wood or stone. Damian bent backwards underneath it, gesturing with his left hand as he did, and punched out with his right hand as he came back up. The Beowolf was knocked back a couple of metres by the hit, giving Damian time to spin to his left and pull the wires taut. A Beowolf leapt through the space he’d just been occupying – unfortunately for it, passing through the series of taut wires. It was shredded by its own momentum in the split-second during which the Beowolf Damian had knocked away was able to resist being sliced apart.

Two more Grimm down, the Huntsman-in-training looked to the five monsters that were converging on him at once and flung his hands out to his upper sides. A moment later he clenched his hands into fists and pulled inwards towards his centre, hauling himself into the air as he reduced his own weight enough that the branches served as anchors rather than kindling.

An almost literal dogpile formed beneath him as he rose several metres towards the canopy. A moment later he dropped down to the ground and rocketed towards a Beowolf that was trying to get behind him. Driving a palm-strike into its side he wrapped it with wires and concentrated for a moment. The dark glow of his Semblance ran down the wires and suffused the monster, lightening it enough that when he spun around and hauled it over his shoulder as if he was casting a fishing line, it didn’t die immediately. Instead it travelled in a short,  _ fast _ arc until it came down back-first on the entangled pile of Grimm.

Whether from the impact or the spines that protruded all over the creatures, what had once been six monsters rapidly became a cloud of inky smoke.

Damian’s eyes clouded over for a moment and he threw himself into a backwards roll just in time to pass beneath a leaping Beowolf. A second later he tossed himself into a left cartwheel to avoid the two paws that came down on his previous position hard enough to embed themselves two feet deep in the forest floor. Spinning around he faced three Beowolves that prowled towards him, growling lowly and searching for a weakness.

That was the problem with packs of Grimm. Once you killed enough of them a certain way they’d start getting wise. Still, it wasn’t like Damian didn’t have a couple of more tricks up his sleeve.

Damian crossed his arms so as to place the palms of his hands on their opposite elbows, then ran each through the full rotation of the elbow joint like he was miming a rainbow. The Beowolves charged forward as they saw the dangerous hands were pre-occupied and Damian smirked. They were, after all, still learning.

The rainbow motion segued into a courtly bow, ending with the left hand down by his side and the right arm crossing his chest. The Beowolves managed to get within almost two metres of him when a pile of heavy branches, glowing darkly and moving at a speed well beyond what gravity could normally account for, buried themselves in the ground straight through the monsters.

As smoke drifted out of the impromptu pile of kindling Damian cast his eyes around to check for more adversaries. His eyes widened and he spun around just in time to catch a glimpse of something  _ big  _ and feel the rumbling of the earth beneath his feet. Then a freight train punched him in the chest and he was flying through the forest. That only lasted a moment though. Soon enough he slammed into a tree with enough force to leave a crater and splinter the entire level of the trunk he’d impacted.

For a few seconds the Huntsman-in-training just lay imprinted vertically in a tree, his purplish aura crackling around him as it repaired the damage done by what force it couldn’t shield him from. Then he opened his eyes to behold the Ursa Major that had hit him with a paw the size of Ren’s Nora-Portion frying pan and about the same force as the short ginger herself. Unlike Beacon’s resident Valkyrie, however, the Grimm wasn’t anywhere near likable enough to escape retaliation.

Ominously dark purple began to suffuse Damian’s cloak as he forced his elbows backwards and pried himself from the tree. The ribbons that composed it abruptly shot outwards and upwards to form a nebulous halo of fabric – incidentally flinging Ninjas of Love high into the air above the forest.

As the Ursa Major came charging in to engage once again, the cloud of ribbons coalesced once more. This time they formed two distinct shapes – layered planes that resembled wings. More than resembled, in fact, as they flapped downwards once and launched the almost-weightless teen who wore them into the sky just before the Grimm could reach him.

The monster crashed head-first into the same tree which had hosted Damian and finished the job he’d started. The massive plant’s trunk shattered completely on impact and left the structure unsupported. With a tortured groaning sound it began to keel over backwards as the Grimm lay stunned in front of it – thus giving Damian a clear run.

Orienting himself downwards the Huntsman-in-training swooped past the dazed Grimm in a low arc, trailing a flash of light. A moment after he’d passed a deep line abruptly scored itself in one of the monster’s armoured plates.

Broken from its stupor and roaring its outrage, the Ursa Major stood on its hind legs and took a massive swipe at Damian as he came in for another fly-by. Before the limb could catch him though, one of his wings shot out and wrapped itself around the limb. Damian twisted into an aileron roll as purple light rippled down the ribbons and into the monster, and the result was a short flight arc that ended with the Ursa Major buried spines-first in the earth of the forest.

In the valuable seconds that it took the monster to roll and batter its way to its feet, Damian shot from one to point around the clearing formed by the fallen tree. Once the Ursa Major was vertical he pulled into a backwards loop to re-orient himself and came in for his last attack run.

Coming in head-on, he narrowed his eyes as the Ursa leapt towards him, its jaws wide open to receive his head. Then, when there were still a few metres between them, the ribbons of his cloak abruptly unmade his wings as his flight became a controlled fall forwards. His arms compressed harshly as they took the full momentum of his flight upon touching the forest floor below the leaping monster – but only for a moment, before the handspring was completed and he bounced right back up into a mule-kick that took the Ursa Major right in the chest.

There was a frozen moment as the universe parsed the resulting impact. Then a rippling shockwave flattened the surrounding grass as the massive creature was launched skywards with the force of the strike, somersaulting backward as it went.

Damian landed on his feet and straightened to his full height, watching it reach the peak of its flight and then begin to fall. He raised his hands deliberately, spread to the sides like a conductor – then brought them together high over his head and pulled  _ down _ with all the strength that he’d earned through months of training under the effects of his Semblance.

The web he had crafted with his wires contracted in an instant and every razor edge crossed over just as the Ursa Major plummeted through the canopy layer.

For several seconds it rained chunks of Grimm in the clearing. Then it began to rain wood and leaves as the tree-trunks that had been serving as the web’s anchors all realised they’d been severed. Afternoon sunlight began to shine on the bowed figure at the centre of the new clearing as the canopy collapsed, wires snaking back into the gloves that had spawned them with an infinitely quiet  _ hiss. _

Damian extended his right arm to the side and turned the palm to the sky. With a  _ thump _ , Ninjas of Love fell spine-first into his grip and was summarily returned to its original resting position in his cloak as the ribbons re-arranged themselves into the amorphous piece of clothing.

Damian surveyed the day’s damage with a quiet sigh. “I’ll borrow some sacks from Professor Port later.” He decided. “Maybe we can try our hand at wood-working or something.” He certainly couldn’t leave such a mess lying around for someone else to deal with.

For now though, he had to get back to the team so they could practice. Professor Goodwitch was always demanding more of them and his Semblance was a critical part of their training regime. Cole in particular needed the extra muscle…not least because the more he could do with Iron Curtain’s blade form, the less reason he’d have to use its rifle form and wrack up yet another massive bill and make several hours’ worth of repair and cleanup work.

Damian turned once more towards Beacon, tugging  _ Damhan-Allaidh _ from his hands and returning them to their pockets in his trousers as he did so.  _ “In time, your heart will open minds, _

_ “A story will be told…” _

One final Beowolf leapt from the forest as he walked into the shade of the canopy. A late-comer or maybe just smarter than its brethren it had held back. Now that the human had taken off its weapons it lunged for the throat-

It met an ungloved palm. There was a flash of dark purple, an unsettling  _ crunch _ sound…and then a small sphere of smoking black fell to the grass and rolled gently away from the Huntsman-in-training as he continued his walk home without a backward glance.

_ “And vic-to-ry is in-a-sim-ple soul~” _

  
  


**\-------**

***.*.T.C**

**\-------**


	3. 'S' Trailer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written by yours truly! I really enjoyed working on this one. Enjoy!

Walking around in an abandoned town was dangerous. Walking around an abandoned town _alone_ was foolhardy. Walking alone through an abandoned town on the world of Remnant was a surefire way to get anyone killed.

Sienna was glad she wasn't just anyone. At least, not anymore.

There was a morbid sort of tranquility that came with walking alone in the ruins; with the way the wind whistled lowly like a mournful howl amongst what remained of the buildings and the way the rubble crunched beneath her boots with every step she took. A breeze tousled her wavy black hair causing the low ponytail to flutter gently. She rubbed her biceps, the only part of her arm that wasn’t covered by either her black arm-warmers - which substituted for the sleeves her similarly-colored vest lacked - or the red attachments to her vest that covered her shoulders and nothing more, in an attempt to ward off the sudden chill.

A momentary ray of sunlight pierced the clouds as her boots were carrying her over yet another pile of rubble blocking a road. Heedless of the new clouds of dust that settled on the close-fitting, red-highlighted shin portions of her otherwise baggy black trousers, she stopped at the heap’s peak and looked out over Mountain Glenn. She took in the sight of a civilization’s crumbling remains, and she mourned the loss of the people that had once called the rubble home. In the quiet of her mind she sent a silent prayer for the deceased to have peace in death.

God only knew there was no peace for the living. Not here.

She continued to stand there even as the weather grew colder. The gray of the sky reflected the melancholy in her heart and she wondered: what sort of people had lived here? What were they like before life was ripped away from them? Whose home had this been, this pile of rubble she was standing on?

Home...how long had it been? Since her home was taken from her? Since she and her friends were spirited away to this hellish place?

The sound of gravel crumbling under footsteps behind her snapped her out of her reverie.

Her hair whipped around as she crouched, drawing two hilts like eskrima sticks from their holsters on her red-and-purple-striped belt. She tensed and stood perfectly still, focusing her senses to spot sudden movements. “Area 12AB, void of Grimm. Moving on to next perimeter scan.” A distorted, computerised voice echoed through the ruins as a humanoid robot stepped into her line of sight, a simple Dust machine gun cradled in its arms.

Sienna Crown relaxed and stood, lowering her guard with a sigh of relief. She let out a chuckle, prompting the android to swivel its body in her direction. “AK-130s.” She breathed. “And here I thought I was in trouble.”

The robot’s LED eye flashed from white to a deep red. “Unidentified lifeform detected; Analysis: possible threat. Targeting with extreme prejudice.”

“Wait, what?!”

The ear piercing wail of a siren filled the air. Sienna bolted, not fool enough to stick around and see what came next. A hail of Dust rounds filled the air around her, some pelting off the edges of her Aura while others just barely passed by her vitals. When a pile of rubble came up on her left she quickly dived behind it, sliding like a baseball player to home plate before she was caught.

Drawing her sticks once more she went to depress a button on each, but a sudden hail of gunfire from several more Atlesian Knights startled her as it tore chunks from the building that had probably sourced her cover. Devastated masonry rained down around her as the aged building groaned in protest - then a massive crack formed along its side and it began to topple with all the inevitability of Magnhild swinging towards someone’s knees.

_Crap._

* * *

The twenty-droid-strong squadron of Atlesian Knights congregated around the ruins of the collapsed building. The LAN connection which let them coordinate with one another exchanged data at high speed as they swept the wreckage with their sensors for signs of life. All of that data was processed through the designated lead unit as it compiled the data into a cohesive picture of the target’s last known location.

The walking example of once cutting-edge technology had its task interrupted, however, when an angrily glowing red cord suddenly appeared from behind it and wrapped itself around the robot’s torso. A moment later it was yanked backwards so quickly the magnetic connections between the robot’s hands and its gun were overcome and the weapon clattered to the ground. The other Knights watched as the lead unit’s sudden flight continued in an arc which spanned at least thirty feet before it slammed into the side of a building.

There was a loud rumbling sound and the building promptly collapsed directly on top of the robot. The remainder of the squadron noted the increase in photonic and infra-red emissions which indicated the lead unit exploding.

The red cord that had proven to be the lead unit’s downfall retracted with the urgency of a measuring tape and the squadron’s sensors followed it to back to its source in a synchronised movement. Their original target stood apparently unharmed but covered in dust atop a pile of rubble, two hollow rods in their hands - one of which had proven to be the origin of the cord.

“I just lost my goddamn Scroll in there.” Sienna hissed, her amber eyes narrowed and the right-side orb twitching furiously. “I can’t survive without that thing. I can’t call my teammates, I can’t make lists, I can’t plan our next move, _and I can no longer play Angry Nevermores._ Obviously since you wastes of computing power are trying to kill me, I’d be doing Atlas a favor by **_wiping all you dysfunctional, dumbass robots off the face of the earth!”_ **

“Lifeform confirmed as hostile.” The newly designated lead unit stated, unknowingly infuriating Sienna even more. “Protocol: Kill on sight.”

Sienna depressed the first buttons on each rod and Live Wyre instantly formed the glowing whip-cords which she had named them for. Red in her right hand and green in her left they emitted a low, dangerous hum as the concrete they touched began to smoke.

Sienna spun and snapped her right whip into a wide arc, wrapping around two droids and yanking them close together. With a mighty pull, using all the strength she’d built up training with her team, she hauled them over her head and slammed them both into the ground. The red Burn Dust that fuelled Live Wyre’s right-hand component melted into the droids’ casings and severed them. A moment later, the bisected parts of the robot exploded. 

_Listen up, strap in, notify your next of kin,_

_You’re about to take a ride a little on the blazin’ side!_

Sienna’s left hand whirled her green whip in a circle over her head. The Wind Dust that fuelled it reached out into the surrounding atmosphere and kicked up a whirlwind. That whirlwind was then launched in the droids’ direction as Sienna cracked the whip at them, knocking the squadron from their feet and scattering them like leaves in a hurricane.

_Guzzle down your Red Bull, you’re gonna need a bucket full,_

_Watchin’ me accelerate and tear apart the interstate!_

 

As befitted Atlas technology, they quickly regained their bearings as well as their footing and opened fire. Sienna charged forward through the hail of Dust rounds and spun on her feet, lashing out to either side with Live Wyre and weaving a writhing cage of blazing wind with her dual whips. Three of the Atlesian Knights unfortunate enough to be in her vicinity were quickly rendered down to slagged chunks by the air that bordered on plasma.

_A certified monster I’m an absolute trip,_

_Like Otis Redding hard to handle so you better get a grip!_

 

With Dust rounds beginning to ping off her Aura, Sienna leapt skywards into a corkscrew to avoid the bullets, spinning Live Wyre before her as she went and melting or slicing apart some of the ammo that flew her way.

_Super fast, super fly, bonafide wise guy,_

_Call the morgue and say goodbye, write your will it’s time to die!_

_CAFFEINE!_

Sienna came down into a skidding landing that brought her to the centre of the loosely grouped Knights. She brought her left whip over her head and cracked it again, sending another gust of pressurized air toward her robotic adversaries. The bladed units that had been running in to engage her were swept off their feet and, as they began to drop, the right whip snaked in to lasso one Knight in particular. Sienna used her new instant flail to knock five airborne AK-130s out of the air one by one before slamming the one she tied up into the ground.

_I’m CAFFEINE!_

She smirked, but her silent satisfaction quickly dispersed when the instincts that she had become aware of when she unlocked her Semblance screamed at her. When she spun around, she found two bladed arms in alarmingly close proximity to her face.

_I’m a bad dream!_  

The Atlesian Knight stabbed forward into thin air.

_I’m a rad scene!_

_I’m a tad mean!_

_But I’m not!_

Before it could process the sudden disappearance of its target, two dark blue poles of Dust suddenly perforated its torso. Where they’d passed through the robot spikes of ice erupted from within its casing, stabbing through the hardy systems within and reducing the technological marvel to an icy porcupine that collapsed to the ground. 

_Afraid to take you out! (Afraid to take you out!)_

 As Sienna spun around and took in her remaining opposition, she was pleasantly surprised to find that none of the remaining droids were carrying guns. “Alright,” She grinned savagely and twirled Live Wyre in their rod forms. She clicked a button on each of Live Wyre’s hilts and the dark blue Dust drained from the both weapons before being replaced with red and green once more. 

She cracked both whips then smacked red and green together. Both cords flashed to a single bright orange and she cracked her neck. Tightening her grip on her weapons and holding them up in a battle stance she called “Which one of you rust buckets is next?”

To their credit the robots wasted no time in rushing her. The loud hiss of hydraulics filled the air as they rocketed forward on springy legs, their bladed arms at the ready. In response Sienna bent her knees and charged forward with her own burst of speed, brandishing Live Wyre in an attack formation.

_I’m a cheetah on the plains, I’m a highway star;_

As Sienna reached the front lines of the droids’ formation and they began to swing towards her, their strikes perfectly coordinated, the teenager vanished into thin air and reappeared at their back line. Live Wyre shot out over the shoulders of one droid to wrap under the arms of the unit in front of it. With a yank the robot was hauled backwards and skewered on its brethren’s blades, and as the closer unit was knocked towards her Sienna clicked a button on her hilts. Live Wyre’s cords pulled in and became rigid, taking forms more reminiscent of short lightsabers than whips. 

_A supersonic princess in a million dollar car!_

The glowing orange blades sank into and through the Knight as it came within her range, and she pulled them out to either side. As the robot fell apart Live Wyre’s blades extended and became cords once more, lashing outwards and up. The encroaching shadow of a Knight which had leapt towards Sienna met its owner more quickly than planned as the robot was lassoed around the ankle and slammed to the ground.

_Blood on fire pumping through my veins,_

As it twitched and sparked, Sienna strafed sideways across the droids’ path. Live Wyre lashed out once again - this time, though, the droids jumped to either side to avoid the cord. With a frown Sienna spun to bring her left-hand whip around in a scything lash, but the robots sprang into the air and kept closing the distance. She vanished from her spot as she judged they’d grown too close and reappeared standing atop a pile of rubble near where she had originally taken cover.

She really hated enemies that could learn. 

_Weaving in and out while I’m bolting through the lanes!_

 As the droids wheeled around to come at her again, she carefully noted where each one was positioned and took a deep breath. Live Wyre flickered and reformed as she pressed a series of buttons and pressed the base of its hilts together. The rigid blades of angry orange light grew brighter as the two parts of the weapon became one, and as she began to spin in place with the Dust-bo in hand, she vanished.

_I’m hyperdrive, overdrive, hit the gas at fifty-five,_

 She reappeared directly in the shadow of a droid in the middle of the pack still spinning. Live Wyre sheared through its torso in an instant, leaving the legs to keep running for a moment as the upper half dropped to the ground in its wake.

Sienna was already gone.

_Breakneck, trainwreck, in my presence genuflect,_

 Her next appearance swept the legs out from beneath one of the front-runners - literally. As the robot toppled forward her next rotation removed the head from the torso and she vanished again.

_Track-roundin', speed-a-soundin', electrifyin', pulse-poundin',_

 As she appeared for a third time instinct screamed at her to drop low - and she did, but kept spinning. Two sets of blades passed over her head as Live Wyre carved a circular path through air and metal, taking two more droids out of the equation and warning Sienna that they were still learning.

_Heart-pumpin', brain-thumpin', watch me get the party jumpin’!_  

The droids’ LAN had calculated where the target was likely to reappear next. As the target vanished from their sensors once again they oriented themselves as one toward the spot where their predictive software anticipated the target’s re-appearance. The closest two units evacuated to a safe distance for instantaneous engagement, while the furthest two primed their launch systems.

_CAFFEINE!_

_I’M CAFFEINE!_

The target didn’t re-appear though. Instead, there was a dip in the photonic activity of the spot they’d anticipated as being the target’s re-appearance zone.

_CAFFEINE!_

_I’M CAFFEINE!_  

They hadn’t quite connected the sudden appearance of a shadow with the sudden appearance of an object before Live Wyre, back in its whip forms, lashed out. Two of the four remaining droids that had formed a box formation were lassoed and, as she hung momentarily in the air above them, Sienna let loose a battle cry and twisted herself into a corkscrew with all the improbable strength she had earned with blood, sweat and tears.

_I’m a bad dream!_

 She should have had no leverage and no way of generating enough torque to do...anything, really. That didn’t stop her from hauling two human-sized robots off their feet and into an arc fast enough to wreck their neighbours when they were slammed together and thrown away.

_I’m a rad scene!_

 Sienna landed in a three-point crouch as the only two functional Knights skidded away, raising sparks as they scraped across the ground. She took deep breaths, both worn out and disoriented from the rapid sequence of jumps.

_I’m a tad mean!_

 The two droids launched themselves back to their feet and closed in from either side of the kneeling teen, blades cocked back for hydraulic launch. They were almost within the reach of their weapons when Sienna shot to her feet and Live Wyre extended with all the speed of a striking cobra.

_But I’m not!_

 Glowing lines of slagged metal trailed their way from the robots’ groins to the crowns of their heads, neatly bisecting them in an instant as the whips shot for the sky from where their cords had extended along the ground. Sienna vanished from her kneeling spot and reappeared a couple of metres away just in time for the two wrecked robots to crash into one another and fall into four sparking wrecks. 

_Afraid to take you out! (Afraid to take you out!)_

 

* * *

 

Sienna slammed the door to the dorm open with a loud bang. Her teammates (along with Blake, who was visiting) jumped at the sudden noise.

They all stared, sitting perfectly still as she stomped around the room tracking gray footprints of soot and cement dust on the maroon carpet, muttering furiously under her breath about “stupid goddamned out-of-date robots” and “dumbass metal tree men” all the way. She stuck an arm under her bed with enough force to punch a hole through a hardwood floor and fished out a toiletry bag. Then she launched herself to her feet quickly enough that she actually rose an inch off the ground before storming over to her closet door, throwing it open hard enough that the hinges squealed and deformed, snatching a towel and then slamming the closet shut again with enough force that the mirror on the outside of the door broke and scattered shards over half the dorm room.

Thankfully broken glass wasn’t much of a hazard to people who generated natural forcefields as a matter of course, but the tinkling of broken glass in the silent room was its own kind of danger.

Sienna started thumping her way back to the dorm-room’s door, most likely headed for the showers, but paused for a moment when Damian cleared his throat. “So...did anything interesting happen on your walk?”

Standing just shy of the doorway, Sienna looked over her shoulder with an intensity to her gaze that could have lit a candle from across a room. _“I,_ am going to take a _goddamn shower.”_ Sienna declared in a low hiss. “And then _you,”_ her hand twisted to point at Johan as if the two were oppositely charged magnets, and the team leader raised his eyebrows, “are taking me to buy a new Scroll.”

Cobalt, who was putting together ammunition for Iron Curtain (he did that a lot. Rounds that large weren’t easy to come by and he went through them alarmingly quickly), nodded as if he’d just solved some great mystery. _“That_ explains why you wouldn’t pick up--”

“Shut. Up. Cobalt.”

Despite the warning looks from both of his other teammates and the exceedingly dangerous tone in Sienna’s voice, Cobalt just shrugged. “Not my fault you refuse to use the Cloud.”

Sienna sharply inhaled at his unfazed retort and clenched a fist. For a moment it seemed like she would explode, and the two other male members of JSTC carefully distanced themselves from the swordsman as the room’s atmosphere seemed to solidify and charge at the same time.

Rather than say anything however, she stalked briskly out the door and slammed it behind her so hard the room shook and plaster dust fell from the ceiling.

Silence fell for a few moments. Then:

“That must have been some walk.” Blake noted.

 

**\----------**

***.S.T.C**

**\----------**


	4. 'J' Trailer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written by xanothos, author of "Not Playing with a Full Deck." Check it out if you like Highschool DxD!

_Remnant – a world beneath a shattered moon, home to monsters myriad and not always obvious. Vale – a Kingdom sheltered by the mountains and the sea, one of only four Great Kingdoms. The City of Vale – the Kingdom's Capital, home of Beacon Academy, where children enter and trained killers leave to do unto the monsters..._

Here, at the edge of the city, there is a park. It's not all that special. It's just a quiet, out-of-the-way grassy clearing amidst a circle of pine trees. It would see use by loners or couples, those who sought stolen moments in the restful quiet away from the main city.

In the present, however, it ensconced within itself a young man. A teen, tall for his age, with his eyes closed and his earbuds humming faintly. His arms were folded behind his head as a makeshift pillow and the evening wind stirred his shaggy, chin-length black hair where it was mingling with the grass around them. A direct contrast to the shock of white atop his crown though not the the feathers that grew from either side of his head and fluttered gently.

The sun had not yet set fully but was hidden by the clouds which filled the overcast sky and had done all day. It left the air pleasantly cool and the teen perfectly comfortable in his chosen outfit, composed of _tabi_ boots – distinct for the cleft separating the big toe from its siblings, _hakama_ leggings – which were tight at the ankles and waist but baggy around the legs – and a close-fitted, oriental top with ties instead of buttons.

All were done in black with the only – and apparently grudging – colouration coming from the scarlet markings on the lapel and left shoulder. The rune 'Ansuz', which bore a great resemblance to the letter F with its arms angled downward and served as the teen's personal emblem.

In the shadowed world beneath the clouds his appearance still stood out as black-on-dark. But his was not the only one.

They came from the ring of trees on silent feet with their chosen weapons muffled by carefully applied cloth. Their choice in clothing was also primarily dark. Black and the grey of charcoal were the mainstays – except for the masks. The half-face masks were a pure bone-white with black slits for the eyes beyond to peer out from and red tracery so as to mimic the beasts which inspired them. They were unmistakable no matter where they were seen, bringing almost as much fear and loathing as the monsters from which their appearance was derived. 

Nine such shades stepped forward from the shadows between trees, advancing cautiously on the laying teen. Bringing up the rear was a figure in much the same dress but a different mask. This one was a faithful recreation of the mask of an Ursa, an ursine creature of Grimm, which likely left whomsoever got close enough to remember the mask in detail with a crippling dependence on regular therapy. Well, assuming the White Fang had not killed them once their work was done, of course. After all, their masks weren’t the only reason people ran from them. 

They made little to no sound as they stepped forward. They passed through the grass with only minor disturbance, their weapons to hand, every motion bringing them closer to the target-

Then an unseen line was breached. The hum of the earphones fell momentarily silent as the song ended and in that same moment eyes that would have been more at home in the face of a raptor than any anthropoid opened wide. There was a blur of movement and the closest member of the White Fang went down with his knee caved in sideways.

Johan Silbern completed his spin on his feet, having lost far less momentum than he should have done in breaking a man's leg on his journey, and his golden eyes surveyed the scene.

* * *

 Johan’s gaze swept the clearing, passing over eight other rank-and-file members of the Fang before stopping on the tenth member of the group. They alone were dressed differently from the others. Thick body armor and a mask patterned after an Ursa told Johan all he needed to know: this one was the leader.

  
Johan loosed an aggravated sigh. He had _needed_ this break after Cole’s latest instance of property damage, so of _course_ it would get interrupted. He knew why they were here. In the months since he and his friends had arrived in this world he’d made a nuisance of himself to the White Fang. The fact that he’d been made a Faunus, as evidenced by the black eagle feathers in his hair and the tuft of white on top, simply added insult to injury. \

  
Wordlessly the dimensionally displaced youth flicked his wrists, feeling the familiar weight of his reserve blades fall into his hands from their wrist sheathes. His weapon wasn’t inconspicuous like Damian’s _Damhan-Allaidh_ wire-gloves or Sienna’s _Live Wyre_ Dust whips so he’d had to leave _Jägermeister_ behind at Beacon. Since he couldn’t bring his Dust-powered, Dust-bladed Omnidirectional Mobility Gear (DDODM Gear for short) and he couldn’t punch holes in people like Cobalt, he had taken the liberty of concealing a pair of Dust blades in his sleeves whenever he went into the city. Today’s load? Burn and Freeze Dust.

  
As another song began to play in his headphones he slammed the blades together, his Aura blazing through them.

  
_Close your eyes now, time for dreams,_ _  
_ _Death is never what it seems,_

  
As fire and ice collided and mixed a thick mist began to spread throughout the clearing. In only a few moments the hanging vapour was thick enough that not even the sight of the average Faunus could pierce it and the standing teen became just a silhouette. Then, with a flicker of movement, even that trace of his presence vanished. The remaining members of the Fang grouped up around their leader with discontent mutters and slight trembling in their hands, their guns and blades pointed outwards.

  
_Take the things you thought you should,_ _  
_ _All the things they said were,_

_Good..._

  
Alas, it was to no avail. A pair of hands burst from the mist without warning, wrapped around two masked faces and dragged them into the mist. The blades that lunged after their vanishing forms caught nothing but air as heavily muffled yells bounced through the heavy atmosphere.

  
_All your faith in ancient ways,_ _  
_ _Leaves you trapped inside a maze,_

  
The sound of flesh striking flesh echoed in the mist, then silence returned. There was a rustling noise to the left of the group and three of the remaining six spun towards it firing wildly.

_  
_ _Take the lives of those you need,_

  
A black form crumpled to the ground at the edge of their visibility and the three rushed over, ignoring their leader’s shouting. Then they reached the shape and knew they’d made a potentially fatal error. It wasn’t a body. Instead, the black shape was nothing more than a tunic with a red symbol on its collar and shoulder.

  
_Sow the death and reap the,_

_Seed..._

  
The flats of Johan’s blades crashed into two of the shooters’ craniums from behind, laying them out instantly as their consciousnesses flatlined. As the third spun toward his fallen comrades a fist crashed into his temple, dropping him like a stone and shattering his mask with the strength of the blow.

 

_Reap the,_

_Seed!_

  
The remaining three Fang grunts began to panic. One dropped to his knees, his sword burying itself in the ground as he began muttering prayers. A foot scythed out of the mist and into his conveniently-placed temple, rendering him unconscious. As another mass-produced blade slashed through the fog where Johan ought to have been the water vapour twirled and eddied...but revealed nothing more than the downed grunt.

_  
_ _Born an angel, heaven sent,_   
Falls from grace are never elegant...

  
The second grunt’s self-control broke and he charged into the mist, screaming his defiance and swinging his blade to and fro. He promptly sprinted directly into Johan’s outstretched forearm as it loomed out of the mist in front of him and he was flipped backwards onto the ground. One kick to the head later his choking was silenced.

  
_Stars will drop out of the sky,_

  
The third and final foot-soldier shook badly for a few moments, then dropped his weapon and sprinted away despite the angered screaming of his commander. He passed within a metre of the silent Eagle Faunus in his retreat...but Johan didn’t pursue. The more times these attempts were thwarted and news spread, the less often they’d be attempted - or so he hoped.

 

The mist began to fade as the wind in the clearing picked up. As it thinned both Johan and the White Fang Sergeant could make out the results of the battle...if it could even be called that. Downed White Fang members littered the clearing in various degrees of catatonic with their weapons scattered about and several of their masks shattered. The moon had risen above the line of the canopy and without the shroud of the mist its pale glow illuminated the clearing, casting long shadows

  
The moon will sadly watch the roses die...   


The Ursa-masked Faunus growled out a curse, unslung a massive axe from his back and slammed it into the ground. The whole clearing shook violently knocking Johan off balance. As Johan stumbled, the Sergeant’s axe crashed into his midsection, hurling the teen across the clearing and dropping his Aura by nearly three quarters.

  
_In vain,_ _  
_ _Lost, no gain,_

 

Johan coughed as he pulled himself to his feet. He frowned; this was an undesirable situation. With a passive support Semblance like his, he didn’t really have anything to pull out of his ass here…

 

Or did he? Inspiration struck and his avian eyes widened as he considered the thought which had just spontaneously appeared in his mind.

  
In all honesty it was a bad idea...but it was what he had. He exhaled and began hopping from foot to foot.

  
_But you’re not taking me!_

  
Then Johan’s right foot touched down and he exploded into motion, becoming little more than a blur in his opponent’s eyes.

  
_You can’t take my life!_ _  
_ _I’m not your Sacrifice!_

  
Johan had put a serious dent in the Beacon Library over the course of his enrolment and, pieced together from various sources, he’d picked up on a lot of anecdotes about various things. For most, such insignificant tidbits of information would be all but useless. For Johan however, they were his shot at victory.

 

_You can try but I’m free,_

 

Johan’s Semblance was unusual. It had no direct combat applications. Its true use was in preparation. Johan’s Semblance was…

 

_And you won’t conquer me,_

 

  
Accelerated Learning!

  
_I won’t crawl, most of all,_

  
So long as Johan had even the vaguest of instructions he could learn and master any skill that required practice in a fraction of the time normally required. The skill Johan was using now?

  
_I won’t fall for you!_

  
_Reduced Earth_. A nigh-mythical Aura technique that allowed the user to move great distances in a single step by manipulating their Aura where it emanated from the soles of their feet and touched the ground.

  
_Show them gods and deities,_

  
Legend had it that a master could travel from Vale to Mistral in a single step. Of course that was just a legend…but on Remnant, the line between legend and reality was often far too blurry to truly be called a ‘divide’.

 

_Blind and keep the people on their,_

_Knees..._

  
In any case, Johan was far from any such feat. However for his first ever step using Reduced Earth he’d done quite well. While he’d managed to crash into a tree at the end of his step, he’d also dealt a debilitating blow to his opponent.

 

_Pierce the sky, escape your fate,_ _  
_ _The more you try, the more you’ll just breed hate…_

  
His increased velocity had provided enough extra force for his blade to shatter his foe’s mask and cut through his Aura, much as Johan had remembered a certain Red Bull could. The Burn Dust blade had slashed across the Sergeant’s face at the level of his eyes, cauterizing the wounds as it made them and destroying the delicate organs. The unmasked foe screamed and dropped to his knees, clawing at his face and interspersing his cries of pain with curses.

_  
_ _And lies,_   
Truth will rise,

  
After peeling himself off his tree Johan walked over to his agonized foe. A kick relieved the howling man of his axe and a slap upside the head ended his yelling. Johan stared down at the defeated terrorist with golden eyes that were never meant to convey the pity they now held.

  
_Revealed by mirrored eyes..._

  
In unison with the song playing in his ears, Johan spoke to his foe.

  
_“What if all the plans you made_ _  
_ _Were not worth the price they paid?_ _  
_ _Even with the lives you stole,_   
Still no closer to your,

_Goal...”_

  
The blinded radical spat in Johan’s general direction, then growled, “You know nothing, race-traitor! Adam will bring us what is rightfully ours: Supremacy! You will be begging to joi-”

 

He didn’t get any further in his rant before Johan slammed the hilt of his blade into an unguarded temple. The sergeant crumpled bonelessly to the ground and silence fell once more.

 

He’d heard it all before.

 

* * *

 

  
A little while later both the police and Johan’s teammates had arrived. The first had come when Johan had called them about the incident, whereas the second group had seen his Aura plummet and had come as swiftly as they could. Once the members of the Fang had been hauled in the four departed, Johan singing softly under his breath.

  
_You can't take my life!_ _  
_ _I'm not your Sacrifice!_

  
He knew that their path would be hard.

_  
_ _You can try but I'm free,_   
And you won't conquer me!

  
He knew that their chances of changing the future to come were low.

_  
_ _I won't crawl, most of all,_   
I won't fall,

_For,_

_You!_

  
Yet most of all, Johan knew that there was no-one he’d rather have at his side.

  
He reached down as they passed his discarded top and swiped it off the ground, shaking it out to remove the dust and dew. It abruptly fell apart into a pile of thread and torn fabric as the dozens of bullet-holes riddling it made themselves apparent. “ _Fuck!_ My shirt used to be _runed…_ ”

 

All three of Johan’s teammates halted in mid-step, turning to look at their leader with warning expressions-

 

“Now it’s just _ruined!”_ A shit-eating grin spread across Johan’s face and the sound of three simultaneous facepalms sounded through the clearing.

 

That was more like it.

 

**\---------**

**J.S.T.C**

**\---------**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the last trailer, and we go on to the main event! Drop a comment and let us know what you think!
> 
> And if you do check out my buddies' other works, tell 'em Willow sent you~


	5. Prologue: You Say Run (Part One)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the prologue! Enjoy~

Far beyond the edges of reality, there exists a vast, blank expanse of marble-white nothingness. Within this void there floated a young man, spinning around in befuddlement at his situation. ' _Where… am I?_ ' Johan wondered as peered about himself, trying to get his bearings.  
  
**[So. Another soul for the Cycle of Rebirth.]**  
  
Johan spun towards what he thought was the source of the voice, if it could even be called such, and gaped in surprise. What hovered before him was hauntingly familiar, yet utterly alien.  
  
It was almost humanoid - if you ignored the fact that instead of legs, its torso lead downwards into an outspread black coat riddled with bullet-holes. That same black coat enveloped everything from the figure's neck downwards, with a blood-streaked and ragged mantle floating in the air down to around the centre of its torso. In its black-gloved hands were twin revolvers with barrels that extended for a third of the being's height. Two chains had apparently been looped over its shoulders and left to rest on the opposite hips like bandoliers - except now they were floating several inches off the figure's torso.  
  
To complete the visage, it had...a lack of visage. Instead of a face there was a white bag over the figure's head that had been tied around its neck with rope. Blood stained the left-hand side of the bag except for a single clear circle that indicated an eye.  
  
Johan swallowed thickly. "You...are you the Reaper? Are you... _Death_?"  
  
The being let out a disdainful snort.  **[Yes and no. I am Death, but this form that you see - this...** _ **Reaper**_   **\- is merely your mind interpreting my existence in such a way that your soul survives the experience...well, for a given definition of survival.]** Death shrugged its chain-bound shoulders, then resumed its spiel.  **[In any case, you're dead, in case you hadn't figured it out yet. At least you went quietly; an aneurysm in one's sleep is perhaps the easiest and least painful way to die.]**  
  
Johan made a noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper, then asked shakily, "W-what happens now? I mean, I'm  _dead_."  
  
**[Now, you get to spin the Wheel of Reincarnation.]**  Death replied.  **[I know it sounds clichéd and contrived, but I do what I can to provide myself with amusement.]**  Death waved a tattered arm, causing his chains to rattle ominously, and out of nowhere appeared a massive roulette wheel carved of bone. It looked like it had been pulled straight out of  _Edgy Death Metal Monthly._  
  
Johan, in spite of his tempestuous emotional state, looked at Death with a deadpan stare. " _Really_? Are you certain that this is not the Wheel of Pain? Because frankly, just  _looking_ at this thing is torture."  
  
Death shot Johan a gimlet eye, which was quite a feat considering how sinister his Reaper form already looked.  **[...Just shut up and spin the Wheel, you snarky shit.]**  
  
Johan floated forward wordlessly, took ahold of a titanic rib that took the place of a handle, and  _heaved_. The Stygian wheel spun on an axle of polished tibia, eventually rattling to a stop. A jagged jawbone pointed to an ornately carved symbol: a shattered moon. Johan stared at the symbol.  
  
"Am I misreading this, or are you sending me to Remnant?" asked the dead-but-not-yet-departed soul.  
  
**[Ah, Remnant. Oum's world. That** _ **is**_   **an interesting one for reincarnation; usually it doesn't show up at all on the Wheel. In this case, direct rebirth is unfeasible due to the fact that Remnant is a deathworld, so you'll be transplanted in a new body.]**  Death then crossed his arms, the colossal revolvers of the Reaper form vanishing with a pulse of black.  **[Additionally, there is a dimensional rule that even** _ **I**_   **cannot break...without consequences, at least. Things of significance in Remnant come in fours.]**  
  
A dreadful, insidious kind of horror crept over Johan as he turned an unbelieving gaze on the nightmarish figure. "You don't mean…"  
  
Death's single eye closed, and the Primordial nodded somberly.  **[Three people who connect with you most closely shall be brought here and will accompany you to Remnant. Now, let me delve within your mind…]**  
  
Johan shivered as icy fingers probed his psyche, teasing the desired information from him without effort. Barely a moment later, three pops sounded simultaneously within the vast void, and just like that, three new faces entered the Realm Between.  
  
The first was a tanned, green-eyed young man with short black hair. He blinked rapidly as he looked around himself, the long grey coat he was wearing over jeans, a brown hoodie and snow-encrusted boots swishing around his ankles. "What-"  
  
A dark skinned girl wearing pajamas appeared next. Her hair flowed about in a messy ponytail, and her fearfully flabbergasted expression certainly did not match the smiling cartoon kittens on her pajama bottoms. "-the-"  
  
The final person to appear was another young man with golden-blond hair and ocean-blue eyes. He was clad in black track pants and a black hoodie, and after a rapid series of blinks he looked around with an utterly dumbfounded look on his face. " _-fuck?!"_  
  
Three sets of eyes focused in on the other two present in the void after only a few seconds. First on the seven-foot, floating monstrosity in bullet-riddled black and blood-stained red, then on the black-haired young man wearing glasses and boxer shorts standing in front of it. Then back to the monster.  
  
The teen in the long coat promptly turned the colour of vanilla yoghurt and started to shake violently. The blond fell backwards, his expression plunging headlong into existential terror as his whole body locked up and he started to sweat profusely. The only female present showed a lot more common sense. Once she stopped hyperventilating in panic and realized no one was moving she promptly turned and fled, quickly vanishing into the middle distance as she sprinted with all the speed of someone running for their life…  
  
Only to  _re-_ appear in the middle distance exactly opposite where she had vanished. She quickly ran closer, growing larger until she caught sight of the group again. Then she shrieked and did an abrupt about-face, once more vanishing into the distance.  
  
Johan paled further, then spoke. "Oh, fuck all kinds of duck."  
  
The teen in the long coat managed to work around his violently shaking body to get his coat off and throw it on Johan's direction. When the other man caught it and gave him a questioning look, the teen's voice was just as shaky as his body. "Sorry Johan, but if I'm about to die I'd rather not have your semi-naked body be the last thing I see."  
  
Johan started. "Heh. Thanks Damian. Unfortunately, I think that we are already dead, and Kenshiro has nothing to do with it."  
  
" _What the hell are you fucking idiots not running for?!"_ The girl had returned and began screeching in unadulterated panic to the assembled souls. She kept running forward and pulled on Johan's arm, violently yanking him along with her as she moved on to grasp a fistful of Damian's sleeve. " _Move! **Let's go, dammit!**_ " Her voice grew more frenzied with every word as she pulled with increasingly alarming strength.  
  
Both males had a moment to blink in surprise before they were yanked off their feet and dragged along behind the hysterical woman as she ran. She didn't seem to register the fact that she was dragging more than a hundred and fifty pounds with each arm while she ran flat-out. Nor that those two weights were flapping behind her in a manner more resembling flags than human beings.  
  
As they sprinted past the blond teen, who was still flat on his back, he seemed to snap out of his terrified rictus. "W-What the  _fuck_ is going on here?!"  
  
Johan shouted a reply from his position being dragged behind a panicking woman. "I'm dead, the Reaper's a dick, and we're about to get our asses isekai'd. In other words, this is a Code Press-Ganging!"  
  
The blond blinked, then another emotion entered the wide spectrum that was his expression.  _Anger._ "Oh you  _mother FUCKER!"_  
  
Johan scowled right back at him. "Oh, don't you  _even_  start, Cole! Unlike in that story of yours,  _I_  didn't wish my friend dead. Tall, dark and bloodstained over there literally pulled the information from my brain."  
  
Cole seemed to get angrier. " _Who the hell expects this to actually happen!?"_  
  
Johan rolled his eyes, not that Cole could see it. Sienna, the woman that was currently dragging him and Damian behind her like they weighed nothing, had gotten further into the distance from the blond. "What kind of fanfic writer are you? I thought you and Damian had  _contingency plans_  for this shit?" The dryness of Johan's tone clearly showed what he thought of  _that_  idea.  
  
"That was a fucking joke! What type of insane do you have to be to believe that stuff like that is real?!"  
  
By this time, Sienna had looped around again and started screaming incoherently in frenzied frustration. She changed directions and started running again, though to the same result. From where he was dangling by her grip on his arm, Damian took a moment to cast off his usual view of the world (which was honestly habitual at this point, writing fanfiction would do that to you) and thereby separate himself from the worst of the gibbering terror and approaching mental breakdown that was trying to drown him. "Well, what kind of crazy do you have to be to make this stuff up in the first place?" He asked. "'Cause I'd say  _our_  kind of crazy."  
  
By this time, Johan had managed to dislodge Sienna's grip on the Badass Longcoattm that covered his body. "Well, you aren't wrong on that. Now, I know that this is all very confusing, but…" Johan looked up to see Sienna still running, Damian dangling behind her with a deadpan expression on his face. "Alright, fuck it." Johan cupped his hands around his mouth, then shouted, "SIENNA! CONTAIN THE CALAMITY THAT IS YOUR MAMMARIES!"  
  
Sienna came to an abrupt halt. So abrupt that Damian flipped right over her shoulder and kept flying forward, eventually coming to land on his face on the opposite side of their mobius strip of a reality pocket. As the girl turned around slowly, Johan stood his ground.  
  
"Johan?" She trembled and her voice shook as she clutched her rapidly beating heart, twisting the fabric of her shirt in her fist. "What the  _hell_  is going on?"  
  
Johan, having become rather fed up with unlife, the Reaper, and the situation in general, replied more curtly than he would have done normally. He was  _dead_ , after all - no amount of rage could do him more harm than he'd be done already. "I died in my sleep. The levitating edgelord over there is Death." Johan jerked a thumb at the Reaper. "I spun his super-edgy Wheel of Reincarnation and got Remnant. Apparently, there's some 'Law of Four' that brought the three of you here too."  
  
"Remnant...as in…?" Sienna's body shook with her head bowed down, her hair shadowing her face.  
  
Okay, admittedly Johan was getting nervous now, but it wasn't like there was anything she could really do to him-  
  


* * *

  
The ensuing audial tidal wave of emotion caused the three male human souls to clamp their hands over their ears and screw their eyes shut. Some distance away from the group, the Aspect of Death wearing the form of The Reaper briefly brought its attention away from a game of Celestial Solitaire as the fabric of the In-Between vibrated slightly under the force of the sonic assault.  
  
**[I always get the loud ones.]** It muttered to itself as it considered the six-dimensional array of cards in its mind's eye. An eighteen of Herakles was placed over/around/inside a nineteen of Zeus and one of the Spartans spasmed before turning into a tree and skewering one of the giant eagles, which fell into Mount Doom and caused an eruption.  **[Bugger.]**  
  


* * *

Cole let out a low whistle, his fear and panic put aside for a moment as he watched Sienna shake Johan back and forth, screaming her head off.  
  
"YOU BASTARD! YOU  _BASTARD! **YOU FUCKING PIECE OF ABSOLUTE BASTARDIZED-"**_  
  
Sienna continued to shriek explosive expletives in Johan's face while his head lolled back and forth like a bobblehead.  
  
"Shyeeennner, stahp." Johan slurred, his cheeks flapping as his friend shook him harder in her apoplectic state of fury, causing his head to shake at speeds only slightly slower than sonic.  
  
Cole couldn't help but chuckle in a dispay of mirthless schadenfruede. "You know, if she wasn't doing it, I would be."  
  
"Baaahhte meh, Coooleee." Moaned the mound of wobbling ectoplasm that had once been Johan.  
  
It was about then that Damian finally finished his walk back from the edge of the pocket reality. "Sienna, we can't really talk to him if he's turned to jelly."  
  
This simple reasoning didn't seem to have much effect on the yelling or the shaking. Damian sighed. "Drat." He looked over to Cole and opened his mouth to ask for some help extracting Johan from his nigh-supersonic oscillations. Then he closed his mouth again as he remembered who he was about to ask. "On the bright side, humans are mostly water already anyway." He reasoned to himself as he set off towards The Reaper. "So if he turns into a puddle he'll probably still be able to survive."  
  
Cole could only give his friend a single shaky grin, the feelings of  _extreme_ fear coming back as quickly as they had gone away.  
  
Quite content with his logic and still happily cutting himself off from his common sense to remain functional, Damian approached the Aspect of Death with a slightly curious expression. It turned to face him, regarding him with a single unblinking circle of white cloth on its blood-soaked mask. "So, we're going along on Johan's reincarnation?"  
  
**[Yes.]**  The figure agreed.  **[It is unfortunate, but the process has already been set in motion. Johan Silbern must move on in the cycle, and by the covenant of the Wheel he must move on to Remnant. This is immutable; and equally immutable is the law that all things on Remnant come in fours.]**  
  
Damian clicked his teeth. "You couldn't have gone with three  _other_  people destined to die today…?"  
  
It was at this point where Cole had begun to mutter under his breath. "This can't be happening, something like this couldn't be real, right? This has gotta be some kind of dream  _right_?"  
  
The Reaper looked down on them and gave the impression that it was raising an eyebrow. As it had neither eyebrows nor a face this could probably be considered extra proof of its supernatural origins.  
  
Damian sighed before it said anything. "Yeah, I got it before I even said it. If you're Johan's personal death, then I'd imagine you're more a Thanatos than anything. That being the case...I don't think there'd have been any better choices either." He reached into his hoodie pocket and withdrew an outdated iPod, staring at it - or more specifically the smiling picture which served as its lock-screen. "...I kind of wish I'd had a bit of warning though." He admitted softly.  
  
He tucked the iPod away after only a moment's staring and looked back up at the Reaper. "Is there anything we should know...anything you can tell us, anyway?"  
  
Before the Aspect of Death could get in a single word, a frustrated scream tore across the space as Cole broke in. "WOULD YOU STOP TRYING TO BE FORMAL AND SHIT ABOUT THIS?! WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCKING HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!" He whirled around to face Damian. "WHY ARE YOU TAKING THIS SO EASY? WE'RE FUCKING  **DEAD!"**  
  
Cole took a moment to catch his breath, before dropping to his knees, tears falling from his eyes. "I was at home not  _three minutes ago!_  I was eating dinner with my family… Now I'm dead, we're all dead, and...and... _and..._ " Cole wasn't able to say anything else, his tears choking him up.  
  
Damian sighed, covering the top half of his face with the palm of his right hand.  
  
Sienna's shaking of Johan slowed down until she held still with her hands loosely wrapped around his neck. Her head was bowed low and her shoulders trembled.  
  
Johan himself slumped slightly where he stood, not moving to remove the hands around his neck. When he spoke, his tone was sober. "I'm sorry, Cole, Sienna. I…maybe I'm not reacting the way I should be; I'm hardly I didn't want this; my death,  _your deaths_...I wouldn't  _ever_ wish for this." Johan shut his eyes, leaving the only indications of his emotion the tightness in his jaw and shoulders.  
  
Damian lowered his hand, turning a wan grin on the others. "I always knew I'd die one day." He shrugged. "Honestly, I kind of hoped it'd be something like this." He waved a hand around. "Something to speak with, something to move on to...it's the closest thing to a religious belief I've ever held." He lowered his arm again, turning a bit so that its shaking wouldn't be obvious. "This is just...just ahead of schedule." If he kept saying it, the teen wondered if he might just begin to believe it.  
  
Cole whipped his head to glare at the two. "Oh would you two  _shut the fuck up_! Don't act like you've been expecting this! I don't care if you're sorry, or you're 'ready for this'. I'M FUCKING NOT!" Cole's voice only grew louder, as he became more hysterical, tears freely flowing from his eyes. "I had  _goals_! I was going to go to college! I HAD MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE AHEAD OF ME, AND YOU  _RUINED_ IT!"  
  
"He's right…" Sienna said lowly. "It's over. Everything...our lives...our families...it's all gone." She released Johan as if physical contact him repulsed her and she hugged herself. "It's over. We're done."  
  
At that moment, the Reaper cocked its head slightly to the side.  **[Time's up. Off you go.]**  It stated simply. There was a rippling of shadow from the folds of its coat as its oversized revolvers spun themselves from nothingness. There was no time to react to their appearance or begin to move - there were just four cracks of thunder in a staccato beat, then everything began to  _streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-_  
  


* * *

 

Johan shook his head, eyes snapping open to regard a snow-covered forest of seemingly dead trees as the bizarre stretching sensation passed. "Ugh. That felt  _weird_." That feeling had definitely  **achieved immortality**  in his memories. He scratched his head in bemusement, then froze." ' _Hair doesn't feel like this…_ ' Pawing at the sides of his head, Johan was only able to draw one conclusion: he had feathers in his hair. No - his hair had  _become feathers._  At least, parts of it.

Apparently he was a Faunus now. That...was  _definitely_  going to complicate things.

Deciding that switching races was the  _least_  of his present worries and that he could deal with it later, Johan cast about himself for his friends.

Damian was turned away, facing outward from their clearing to the deeper forest. His clothes had changed, strangely enough. He was wearing a long coat once more, coloured a darker grey than his original one and with a looser surface that fell around him like a curtain. His hoodie remained in colour, though it had thickened and the hood had lengthened, judging from the way it broke up the shape of his head as he raised it. The heels of some formidable looking boots protruded from beneath his coat's hem where they bit into the snow. Shrouded as he was in the overlarge coat, he was a part of the scenery - a paragon of stillness.

Sienna was kneeling off to the side further away, hunched over and curled in on herself. Her arms were still wrapped around her middle. By virtue of her kneeling position Johan could see that her hair had grown much longer, reaching all the way down to the small of her back and forming a dark curtain around her.

Johan, having found two of his three reluctant companions, looked around the clearing once more, trying to find Cole. Suddenly he felt a sensation on the back of his neck; a sense of a presence that could only be described as gloriously menacing.

Johan didn't even get to turn all the way around to see who it was before a fist cracked itself across his face, spinning him around and sending him toppling to the ground. The ice on the forest floor had combined with the force of Cole's punch to fell the tall teen as easily as an axe blow would fell a sapling. He was greeted to the sight of Cole, still in his tracksuit, rising above him and looking downright  _furious_ _._ " _Get up._ " Cole's voice was just above a whisper. His face was an unreadable spectrum of emotions.

Johan replied in a quiet but firm tone as he got to his feet, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "Okay. You get that  _one_. If you keep this up, Cole, I  _will_  fight back." He gestured to the clearing around them. "After all, look where we are. The middle of bum-fuck Alaska, for all we know."

Cole's myriad emotions slowly began to fade, as his anger was drawn back. "Sorry Johan… I just - I snapped alright? This has just been so fucking fast, and I have no idea what the -" Cole paused, his eyes lighting up with confusion. "Johan...what the hell happened to you? Why did you turn into a goddamn  _furry?"_

Johan's eyes flashed. "I'm a bird, motherfucker. Get your pronouns straight." He then broke out in a series of cackles that seemed rather forced. It was understandable, considering the fact that he'd just died, been reincarnated, then been abruptly and brutally assaulted by one of his friends. To add to his disorientation was the outfit change that had apparently come over him during that moment of infinite distance where they had come unbound from death, not so unlike Damian's.

A charcoal gray coat whose back extended to a split triangular point at the height of his heels, starting from a fairly normal button-up jacket design with a high collar that had been belted around the middle. Dark trousers tucked into lace-up grey boots, matching the colour of the gloves on his hands. It stood on the line between cosplay and some kind of military uniform. Honestly, he rather liked it; he'd be hard-pressed to imagine a cooler outfit off the top of his head...

Damian shifted slightly as the forced laughter drifted through the trees, looking over his shoulder at his friends. The shadow from his raised hood combined with the twisted shadows cast by the leafless branches above them hid any hints of red or reflected light that his eyes might have given away. Those hidden eyes fell on Sienna, and the Scotsman crunched through the snow to hunker down beside her.

The recently-released soul didn't say anything - let alone comment on her unexplained wardrobe change. There was nothing that  _could_  be said. Perhaps nothing that  _should_  be said.

Tiny sobs could be heard as he settled by her. Sienna hiccuped and began to break down; tears steadily streamed down her cheeks and fell to the ground. She trembled and hugged her herself tighter, sniffling and gritting her teeth.

Damian considered for a moment, then decided that attempting to hug her would either be appropriately accepted or met with another emotional rant. Either was good in his mind so he extended an arm carefully and let it hover over her shoulders.

She didn't move and Damian let his arm rest comfortingly on her shoulders. Sienna just cried harder.

Cole's gaze came to rest on the two, tears welling up in his own eyes. They were forced down, as Cole turned back to Johan. "Just…  _please_ tell me what's happening." He spoke in a pleading tone.

Johan steeled himself; it was his responsibility, as the one who'd died and inadvertently dragged them here, to keep his cool while he could. There was no one to protect them here, and they couldn't protect themselves; there would be time for a more thorough breakdown later. "To put it bluntly, we've been reincarnated in the world of Remnant. It's a world from a web series, RWBY. Now, ordinarily I'd be thrilled to be reborn in a series I like, but RWBY takes place on an honest to god deathworld." Johan shook his head, then began to pace nervously.

"RWBY? What the hell is RWBY?" Cole asked, adopting a confused expression.

Johan sighed. "I just said that it was a webseries, but I guess I can't fault you for being distracted. Well, first off, humanity shares the planet with another sentient race, the Faunus, of which I am apparently now a member. Simply put, they are people with largely minor animal traits, like cat ears or puma claws." Johan then deadened his expression. "Naturally, because people are by and large the worst thing ever, the Faunus face massive amounts of discrimination."

"Race war, got it."

Johan nodded, then continued. "Then there's the fact that the people of Remnant have the capacity to gain BULLSHIT SOUL MAGIC, alternatively known as Aura." Johan wasn't entirely sure  _why_  he shouted those three words in particular, but decided to roll with it. "This Aura can shield a person, heal their injuries, and augment their attacks. Additionally, Aura develops into something called a Semblance, which is basically a superpower."

Cole let out a small snort. "Of course… every show's got a superpower." His expression twisted with worry, the fear he was suppressing peeking through again. "You said it was a deathworld? What do you mean by  _that_?"

Johan shivered in spite of himself. "Yeah… about that. You see, the two sentient races only inhabit a small portion of this world in any significant numbers. The rest is either taken up by villages and settlements, which can be lost in an instant, or the third species, if they can even be called that. There's a race of beings who stand dominant over this world; soulless monsters whose only purpose in this world is to cause destruction. The demons are called the Grimm, and-"

At that moment, numerous deep growls resounded across the clearing, a fell cry that seemed to echo from the pits of Tartarus itself. Johan paled, and finished his sentence in a fearful rush. "-And they are attracted to negative emotions.  _Fuuuuuuuck._ "

Damian was already leaping to his feet, Sienna coming up with him as sparks of red hellfire became obvious in the deeper shadows of the Winter-gripped forest. They backed up quickly, eyes darting around and taking in more and more of the glowing pinpricks as monstrously lupine creatures of shadow became more easily distinguishable from the shadows that had concealed their approach.

They didn't have many of the bone-white spines that seemed to accumulate with age and the red markings on their skull-like helmets weren't very elaborate, which probably meant they were young. That didn't make them any less dangerous for four unarmed, Aura-inactive teens with no idea where they were.

Damian and Sienna backed up into Johan and Cole as they all moved away from the approaching circle of monsters. The growls had become a constant disharmony, rattling clenched teeth as the Beowolves circled around. All of their breathing sped up and in turn the Beowolves' growls grew deeper and louder, their movements more agitated.

A soft stream of shaky curses flowed from Sienna's mouth with every shallow breath she took, and the glowing red eyes of the Beowolves flicked towards her more often as they got faster. "The only thing we can do," Damian said lowly, "is run."

Cole looked over his shoulder at the other teen. "You don't have to tell me twi-"

That was the precise moment that a Beowolf broke the circling motion with a  _howl_ , leaping straight for the blond's throat with all the force that its shadowy form could muster.

In the approximate three seconds between its leap and it colliding head-on with the teen, a lot happened. Almost every other Beowolf began to follow suit, the chorus of their howls spreading through the forest in a terrifying roar that bounced off the trees; Sienna's hyperventilating escalated and rapidly became a shrill scream of terror, followed by a bright flash of reddish-bronze light from where she was standing before she vanished into thin air; Damian, startled by the noise and flash, fell sideways onto the ground; and Johan cursed then hopped sideways away from the incoming monster on a half-remembered instinct from old martial arts classes.

Cole was hit head-on and lifted off his feet for a moment before he and the Beowolf with its paws on his shoulders crashed down to the forest floor. The bite aimed for the teen's throat found his shoulder instead, piercing tracksuit and flesh in an instant. Johan and Damian both winced as the resulting scream  _ripped_ its way out of Cole's throat, piercing through the sound of the oncoming Grimm.

Johan kicked out on reflex as the Beowolf he'd side-stepped turned to follow him, a half-remembered lesson from years ago whispering of an opportunity. The monster's mouth was slammed shut by the kick to its lower jaw, snapping its head up and ruining its jump. Running forward over the monster's back as it crashed to the ground he could see Damian rolling around on the ground amid a forest of pounding feet and claws. Another whisper in the back of his mind - a pattern he could only just see, and if he just-!

Johan leapt off the Beowolf's hindquarters and twisted into a spinning kick he'd forgotten how to do years before. It knocked aside one of the monsters as it aimed to dig its claws into the other dark-haired teen, giving Damian time to scramble to his feet and back-peddle with a quick nod of thanks.

Damian's eyes went back and forth across the battlefield as the Grimm swarmed. Thankfully, they were all getting in one another's way and providing the humans some measure of protection against their weight of numbers. Unfortunately they had  _no way to kill them_ , and even if Johan apparently had some martial arts training they were  _not_  prepared for this. It'd take a  _miracle_  for them to survive-

Or, as it happened, one Cole Reynolds.

The blond teen's yell peaked as his arms rose up and  _slammed_  into the Beowolf's shoulders, his head rising so he could glare into the monster's eyes. The bright blue of those eyes flared brighter as the teen's mental state tipped over an unseen edge, then the colour spilled over into the outside world as a sheathe of blue energy sparked to life over Cole's body. The Beowolf reared back, away from the sudden glow that forced its teeth from the teen's flesh and burned in a way it couldn't quite understand.

As it retreated, Cole followed, taking the chance he'd been given. He grabbed the side of the monster's neck with his left hand, then started driving his right fist into its muzzle. Again and again he punched it, still yelling, and as he did so the blue glow around his fist grew brighter, its impact becoming more and more obvious. Finally, as he reared back for his strongest blow yet, the light around his fist condensed down into a tracery of glowing lines which disappeared up his sleeve and spread across his face.

The next punch he threw lifted the Grimm of its feet and shattered every one of its teeth.

That drew the other creatures' attention, buying Johan and Damian precious moments. The former saw the blue glow his friend was giving off and heard the whisper once more. It drew his attention to a glowing warmth at the centre of his chest which seemed like it could have been there forever if he'd just noticed it. Pulling on it was difficult at first, but became obviously easier as the seconds passed and gray luminescence flared to life around him.

A Beowolf directly next to him turned its head to face the new glow. The spinning kick which met its face broke several teeth and knocked it a foot backwards.

Damian however had been pushed nearer to the edge of the scrum as he backed away, putting him with his back almost to a tree and several monsters pressing in on him. As the Beowolves turned away to witness their airborne sibling, the teen immediately spun around, grabbed hold of the lowest branch and  _heaved_  to drag himself upward and away from the immediate danger.

One of the monsters caught the motion and leapt, grabbing the low-hanging hem of Damian's coat as it did so. As it pulled backward, Damian dug his fingers into the branch with greater and greater force, arms straining to pull himself upwards. Terror and a desperate need to go  _up_  sparked in his chest, touching something brought close to the surface in his recent history. Purple light expanded from his hands, lessening the pain in his fingers and arms, allowing him to start making progress as it became easier to push harder.

It wasn't enough though - a glance behind him showed the other Beowolves were turning to him, and there was no way he'd be able to deal with more than one on his coat. Rather than resignation though, that discovery pushed him further into desperation, and the spark in his chest flared bright. His next attempt to pull himself up launched him past the branch he was holding and almost over the top of the tree, Damian scrambling to grab one of the uppermost branches and halt himself. The Beowolf that he'd apparently dragged with him wasn't so lucky and was catapulted upwards into the sky with a confused howl.

Looking down from where he was hanging on to a branch so he wouldn't fall into the sky, Damian could see both Johan and Cole's glowing forms amid the tide of Beowolves. The luminescent blue lines that had spread over Cole's face had spread to cover his clothes and the stick he'd picked up somewhere, and with each wide home-run swing he made he scattered the creatures of Grimm. He didn't quite seem to have the hang of it yet - some would get close to him as he tried to halt the momentum from his swings, clawing at what had to be his Aura and leaving scratches on skin, clothes and wood.

He was almost taken down by a Beowolf leaping at him from behind until Johan - who was standing not far away from Cole, apparently having made his way there through the Beowolves - launched a high-kick from a standing start that returned the monster to the point where it had started its leap in a heap of tangled limbs.

"THIS! REALLY! FUCKING!  _HURTS!"_  Cole declared as he slammed his stick - which, Damian realised, must be more of a branch - into a Beowolf and knocked it into a tree on the other side of the clearing.

"Agreed!" Johan called, stepping lightly on the leg he'd kicked with until he had to use it again to fend off another monster.

Damian gritted his teeth, looking at his hands where they were gripping the branch that had halted his rise. "Okay. Okay. Gotta get down." He muttered to himself, closing his eyes. "I'm doing this, gotta be a Semblance, gotta be a part of me, so  _I have to stop rising."_

The change from being pulled upward to falling down happened in a split-instant, leaving the teen dangling from the branch -  _not_  upside-down, this time. Now in a better situation, for a certain value of better, Damian dropped to the branch directly below him. It was a moment's work to regretfully remove the coat he was wearing, knowing better now, and then look at where his two friends were fighting.

He groaned. "This is going to hurt."

Then he sprinted off the branch, rising higher into the sky than any normal jump could account for as he leapt off the end and then plummeting down faster than should be possible as he was hovering above his friends.

He was right. It  _did_  hurt.

On the bright side, it folded the Beowolf he landed on in half backwards. Plus the involuntary fall to his knees and following roll took him underneath Cole's next swing with his branch, preventing as rapid an exit as his entrance had been.

Coming to his feet, the teen hissed and stumbled. His feet, ankles and legs all screamed at him even through the pleasant warmth emanating from his chest, and the distraction was enough for a Beowolf to take a swing at him. If not for Cole shoulder-checking the other teen out of the way, it might well have been a serious hit.

"PAY ATTENTION!" Cole yelled as he slammed an elbow into Beowolf that tried to take a bite out of him. "GET UP AND FIGHT FOR GOD'S SAKE!"

"Cole, aim for the heads!" Johan called, ducking underneath a Beowolf's pounce with an odd fluidity and kicking it in the hindquarters with a flash of gray light to keep it moving on its way. "The necks can't handle as much strain as the rest of them!"

"GOT IT!"

A Beowolf howled somewhere in the mess of black flesh and white armour, and Cole yelled right back at it as he swung his makeshift club down on one of the incoming monsters. It was driven solidly into the dirt at his feet, leaving the teen free to bounce his weapon back around into a backhand that carried on across three more Beowolves' masks as his left foot rose and fell in a stamp that shattered the grounded monster's skull. More splinters began to appear along the branch's length and the blond gritted his teeth.

If his branch broke, his reach would plummet and he'd be left with just his hands and feet for weapons. The monsters would rush up to him again and he'd die. If he died, Johan and Damian would die. If they all died, the monsters would stop being distracted and go after Sienna.

 _None of that was acceptable._

The Reinforcement tracery across the teen's arms and branch thickened and glowed brighter as the warmth in his chest began to scald, and the next swing of the weapon broke the relatively thin armour of the young Grimm rather than just lifting them from their feet. He could recognise the signs of the ability; not just the fact that he was tougher, but the extra force behind his blows, the extra indefinable 'weight' behind the branch in his hands and the way it hit so much harder than he could justify...and also the distinct pain he was feeling as his body strained to handle forces it had never been meant to.

He had no idea how he was doing it (apart from 'BULLSHIT SOUL MAGIC') but then again that didn't matter. Nor did the worsening pain, which he could deal with anyway by venting it in his yelling and his blows. What  _mattered_  was that he and his friends  _kept on living_  - so Cole just kept swinging and hoped there'd be an end to the tide of black and white.

Standing just far enough away from Cole to not be caught by any errant swings, Johan kept shooting glances at his friend in between the kicks that were becoming stronger and more fluid with every strike. The whispering voice in the back of his mind kept pouring information into his mind - a slight adjustment to make in his stance, a different way to move that would encourage his Aura to flow into his hands and feet, the way the Beowolves would run, strike and leap…

Everything made more and more sense as he fought, and the more sense it made the  _better_  he could fight. It already felt like he'd surpassed what skill he'd had while actively practicing; and the extra force his Aura was lending his blows was definitely helping. Seeing movement in the corner of his eye, he  _knew_ that it was most likely a Beowolf that had circled around the side and would now leap for his throat. At its angle and with the way he was moving at the moment it would get his shoulder in much the same way as Cole had been injured earlier - but if he just  _jumped-!_

Gray luminescence flared around the newly-turned Faunus' feet as he leapt almost precisely eight feet into the air from a standing start, legs tucked in and just in time to hang in the air above the lupine monster that had leapt for him with jaws agape. His legs shot down in perfect sync and both drove heel-first into the base of the Beowolf's neck that he  _knew_  was easily broken, carrying both of them to the ground with a  _thump_ and a flurry of snow.

The monster beneath his feet began to dissolve, and Johan fought on. The next time he had to do that, he already had an idea of how to get more height and more force.

While the other two were beating back the worst of the attackers, Damian got back to his feet. The pain in his legs had passed enough to be manageable, so he scrambled upright and looked for a way to help. What he saw were a group of Beowolves circling back into the woods. A sudden thought of the monsters flooding in from behind them, overcoming his friends, shot across his mind's eye, and just as quickly a solution came to mind.

So he punched a tree.

Aside from the ensuing yell of "FUCK!" as he drew his hand back, Damian managed to accomplish a flare of purple light around the section of the trunk he'd hit and tried to inject with the warmth that sparked in his chest and flowed through his veins. His hopes that he'd understood what happened earlier bore fruit when the glowing wood was crushed beneath its own weight, devastating the tree's ability to stand.

As it began to topple, those hopes seemed fit to sink. It was coming towards them - and while it would probably crush some of the Beowolves, it could also hurt the others.

So he gritted his teeth and launched his hand forward once again - this time in a palm strike - and a ripple of purple light passed over the trunk. The direction of the fall reversed, and several tonnes of wood crashed down into the forest, taking a few other trees with it. The resulting cascade of cellulose crushed more than a few of the flanking Grimm and also provided a wall the teens could put their backs to.

With a momentary reprieve, the three teens backed up against the wall of toppled trees. Cole was still covered in pulsing blue lines as his grip on his branch tightened, but there were obvious cuts on his visible skin and tracksuit, and his branch was beginning to splinter badly. Johan was fairly roughed up, walking gingerly but ignoring it to keep on moving, and Damian - while overall the least harmed - was feeling distinctly drained and heavy on his feet.

The three males looked out over the massing group of Beowolves, a sea of white and black spotted with red hellfire, and gritted their teeth. "...I hope Sienna got somewhere far away at least." Damian said.

Johan grunted in assent, then muttered, "She better not be in trouble; I won't have her second death on my conscience as well."

Cole heaved his club over his shoulder, blue lines tracing themselves over both his arms "We've got another problem on our hands here…"

Johan snorted derisively. "A  _problem_. You, my friend, have a talent for understatement."

Cole gave him a small grin. "Well, we know she's doing  _way_ better then we are."

He was proven right a second later when the Grimm tide rolled forward en-mass, and the flares of blue, gray and purple light against the wall of fallen trees became the only colour in a world of black and white.

* * *

 

  
Three Huntsmen trekked through the Winter Forest: a young man and woman, both in the prime of life and armed with pristine, shiny equipment, and a grizzled older man with a scruffy chin, a scarred eye and a hard expression. Their heavy boots sank in the snow, crunching softly with every step. The younger man twitched now and then, gripping his bow anxiously and occasionally squeezing it like a stress ball.  
  
"Calm  _down_ , Orville." The woman sighed in quiet exasperation. "You're a Huntsman, for goodness' sake. Are you  _trying_ to attract the Grimm?"  
  
"I'm just feeling a little trigger happy, I don't want them springing out at me, I want to be ready!" He spoke quickly, barely leaving room for breath. "You don't know these woods, Chloe, they're teeming with Beowolves, lurking, stalking, creeping, crawling, just  _waiting_ to pounce at you and rip out your viscera-mmph!" He was silenced by Chloe's gloved hands cutting him off, covering his mouth.  
  
"Shut. Up!" She hissed.  
  
"Mmmmphg!"  
  
Despite the squabbling they both managed to keep their tones low enough to avoid drawing attention, as well as keep up with their older leader's unyielding stride. It was when they bumped into the wall that was his back, Orville knocking his head on one of the two hatchets strapped to it, that the relative calm was replaced by tense confusion.  
  
"Braith?"  
  
"Old man?"  
  
Braith's eyes narrowed and and he slowly moved a hand to a weapon at his hip. "Something's coming." His voice was gravel on sandpaper, which always made itself heard despite never seeming to rise above a grumble.  
  
Before they could react a bright flash of light exploded in front of them all, knocking both Orville and Chloe off their balance and to the snowy ground. Braith stood and stared, as still and silent as the ancient trees that surrounded them.  
  
Orville gasped incredulously from his place on the ground, his gangly body tangled up with Chloe. " _Whatthehell-"_  
  
"Move!" Orville yelped as he was unceremoniously pushed off and sent tumbling while Chloe immediately stood up and aimed her rifle. To her surprise it was lowered by Braith's heavy hand resting on the barrel.  
  
"Wait." Chloe looked at him, dumfounded. Then the light dissipated and the form of a person lying in the snow became clear.  
  
"Holy shit."  
  
" _Oh my god it'sagirlwhattheactualwhat!"_  
  
"Shut up Orville and help me get her!" Already Chloe was racing toward the girl, who moaned pitifully in the snow, dressed in nothing but a thin t-shirt, cargo pants and a pair of cheap boots. "Kid, hey kid!" Chloe sunk to her knees and ignored the cold of the snow seeping into her clothes as she hoisted the girl to her knees, supporting her. She coughed and Chloe noticed her eyes glow bright amber for a split second before dimming to a deeper shade.  
  
"I...I-I..."  
  
"Easy." Braith muttered. "Let her go." He roughly picked Orville from the ground by the scruff of the younger man's neck and shoved his fallen bow into his arms, then briskly strode toward the two females. Orville took a moment to gape, his mouth opening and closing like a fish before scrambling after the large man.  
  
Chloe moved aside as Braith approached and the girl stared up at him, trembling and terrified, her eyes flooded with tears. Her breath caught in her throat and she scrambled backwards on her rear.  
  
Braith surprised them all by putting his revolver back in its holster and getting down on one knee. "Tell us what happened." His tone, while gentle, left no room for argument.  
  
"...Grimm. My-my friends! I don't know how I got here, one was about to e-eat me, and!" the girl stopped when the a large, warm hand rested on her head, covering her entire forehead.  
  
"Semblance." Braith said gruffly under his breath. "Aura's just unlocked. High stress does that." Braith stood and offered the girl a hand up.  
  
"Please!" she begged, and Chloe felt her heart lurch at the shivering mess she was. "Please! Are you Huntsmen?! I didn't mean to leave them they're going to die  _please help!"_  
  


* * *

 

Sienna felt her panic and dread overwhelm her, settling in her throat as she cried; a large lump of self loathing and regret and  _fear._ She felt like she was choking on it, she felt like she could die right then and there. She wondered frantically what had happened to the boys. Were they dead? Were they dying?

A heavy hand clapped on her shoulder and startled her from her inner monologue of misery.

"Calm down. Panicking solves nothing." Said the old man. A part of Sienna that still denied that she was even in Remnant noted he looked like a old, wizened version of Guts from Berserk; muscles, scars and all.

"Old man!" Came the shaky cry of the skinny guy. "We've got Grimm! Detected a klick from here!"

"That thing actually works?!" The girl exclaimed in incredulity

"It pays to be prepared, Chloe! See! There're Huntsmen there too! Three crazy Aura signatures!"

"Let's move." Braith pulled his two revolvers, each far too large to be a mass-produced model, from his holsters. He turned to look down at Sienna. "You, try to keep up. Boy," he addressed Orville, who yelped and fumbled with the device in his hand, then saluted, "keep close to her."

"Right!"

Sienna tried her best to swallow the lump in her throat.

* * *

They didn't have to walk for very long before the sounds of battle became audible. The constant howls and roars of Beowolves echoed among the trees, overcoming even the deadening of sound that the snow brought. As the four-strong group ran forwards, those sounds kept growing louder, eventually shifting to include another, more recognisable sound.  
  
The voice of Cole Reynolds was audible even over the lupine disharmony of the Beowolves, expressing rage, pain and a sheer will to live that was almost as bright as the flaring of his Aura. As the roiling mess of Beowolves ahead of the group became visible, some of their hellfire eyes turning to face the approaching humans, blue light shone through the gaps in their formation.  
  
As if they needed another indicator of which way to go, at least four Beowolves were launched skywards and over the canopy layer as the blue light hit a peak and Cole yelled again.  
  
Braith looked back over his shoulder and nodded to his followers. Orville nocked an arrow with a surprisingly steady hand and Chloe flicked off the safety on her rifle, while Sienna hung back and bit her lip as she looked for a way to help.  
  
Then the massive Huntsman in front raised both his weapons and opened fire.  
  
Bright-red rounds streaked away from his guns' barrels, biting deep into the Grimm and setting them alight in clouds of smoke. At least half of the present horde turned to face the incoming group as the gunfire continued, Chloe raising her rifle and slowing to a walking pace as measured, timed groups of shots started to claim targets among the leading edge.  
  
An arrowhead formed naturally as the Beowolves funneled through the trees towards the three Huntsmen, and the monster in the lead gained the dubious honour of receiving Orville's arrow straight through its left eye-socket. An eye-socket that ceased to exist a few seconds later when the beeping cylinder strapped to the arrow's side hit a high enough frequency and the ensuing explosion destroyed everything for a good two metres around its target.  
  
The Grimm assault was reduced to a chaotic, ragged mess by the time it passed the inside edge of the Huntsmen's effective range and Braith re-holstered his guns to reach for the hatchets on his shoulders. Orville quickly turned and scrambled up a nearby tree, making it up to a stable branch in moments and nocking another arrow as he picked his target.  
  
The Beowolves reached Braith - and they  _broke_. A whirling dervish of blades, elbows and knees stood where a target had once been, sending monsters (or at least parts of them) flying with the same stone-like expression on his face. Chloe kept pouring in covering fire, preventing the numbers from becoming overwhelming as she counted the beats of rounds leaving her weapon. When the clip ran dry, it was out of the gun and back in the auto-loader on her hip, replaced with a fresh clip, in under a second without her having to look.  
  
More and more Beowolves were pouring towards the three Huntsmen now, the stronger Auras drawing in the young and stupid monsters. A would-be Alpha reared back to howl near the centre of the mass, opened its mouth and then swallowed an arrow. It whined for a moment before an ice crystal underwent explosive growth from inside it and impaled the surrounding Grimm on its shining spires.  
  
As the horde turned fully onto Braith and the other two, Sienna saw her chance. Focussing on the clearing ahead, which she could now see without its carpeting of monsters, she reached for the warm, light feeling that had appeared before she disappeared before - then there was a bright flash before she stumbled forward, no longer beneath the branches of the trees.  
  
Quickly looking around, she found the three people she'd been looking for leaning back against a wall of toppled trees.  
  
Cole waved in a vaguely light-headed way, a badly battered branch in his hand as he grinned vapidly. "Heeeeey, Sienna~!" The pale-glowing blue lines covering the branch abruptly stuttered and died, leaving the wood to collapse into sawdust that ran through the teen's hand. It stuck to the blood that had poured from his shoulder and from a dozen smaller wounds visible through the wreck that was his tracksuit, somehow staining the black an even darker colour as red dripped to the snow below him.  
  
Next to him, Johan had his hands on his knees, taking deep breaths as quickly as he could while shaking back and forth. He managed a weak smile when he looked up, but he was incredibly pale and quickly returned to his attempts at staying conscious - the fight had taken a great deal from him, and he had a  _bitch_ of a headache. Steady trails of blood dripped from myriad scratches on his legs, with a few on his hands as well.  
  
Finally, Damian looking to be asleep on his feet, only remaining standing because of the way he was almost propped up against the trees at his back. His eyes were mostly closed, his breathing was deep and even, and in suspiciously Beowolf-shaped areas around him the snow had been pressed down so harshly it had become ice. There were a lot of branches missing from the parts of the trees near him. Coincidentally, there were a large number of splinters and shattered wooden pieces nearby too. When he spotted Sienna, he said something along the lines of "Mmrphumble."  
  
Sienna decided that was probably meant to be a greeting.  
  
She brought all three of them into a rather painfully tight embrace and sobbed out gargled apologies. "I'm sorry! I'm  _sorry!"_ Unable to say anything else Sienna repeated this and sobbed in both relief and guilt as she hugged her friends close; grateful that they were alive and guilty for leaving them in the first place.  
  
She kept the hug going, not noticing the (admittedly less than powerful) struggles of her companions as they slowly ran out of air and their battered frames protested the treatment. When she finally loosened her grip, stepping back to check on them, the three men tipped backwards in perfect synchronicity and sent up a combined puff of snow as they passed out.  
  
Sienna let out a small  _eep!_  
  
"Friends of yours?" Came the gruff voice of Braith from behind her. Sienna whirled around and instinctively moved over their unconscious forms, her posture tense. "Relax. Panicking is useless, I told you." It was then that Sienna noticed the silence of the forest, and when she chanced a glance around her, she witnessed the last vestiges of the Grimm dissolve into the frigid air.  
  
"That's the last one, Braith." Chloe called. She walked over to a tree and gave it a solid roundhouse kick, and a yelping Orville fell out like a ripe apple. "Nice shooting, fraidy-pants." Orville grinned and shook the snow out of his hair as he took Chloe's proffered hand up.  
  
Sienna felt her shoulders relax. Relief spread through her and she let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.  
  
"We're taking you back to base. You'll explain everything." With that, the large hulk of a man suddenly hoisted both Johan and Damian up onto his shoulders like sacks of flour, without any warning whatsoever. He turned to address the younger Huntsman and Huntress. "Get the bleeding one. Call the Bullhead."  
  
Orville immediately started fiddling with his Scroll and and Chloe walked over. Sienna took the opportunity to kneel and assess Cole's injury.  
  
She couldn't look for too long.  
  
"He's gonna be fine. His Aura's pretty crazy." Chloe crouched and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Sienna didn't say anything and looked at her, taking note of Chloe's features for the first time. She was dirty blond, with her hair in a messy ponytail. Her eyes were a light green. She looked like a younger, nicer Glynda Goodwitch without glasses. "So's yours. And the other two." Chloe tilted her head. "Was your village full of people like that?"  
  
Shit. She had to make something up, didn't she?  
  
"...Yeah. We were...we were running away. Our families were all slaughtered. The village is gone. Burned to the ground." Sienna hunched over a bit further, hoping the Huntress wouldn't be able to see her eyes and the lie therein. "We went back, but...there was nothing left. Then the Grimm came after us." There. That sounded feasible.  
  
Chloe didn't move for a moment, but before Sienna could grow any more tense the Huntress nodded and reached out for the downed teen in front of them. She stood carefully, shifting Cole into a bridal carry as she set off towards the increasingly loud sound of an approaching engine. Sienna followed while Orville rushed past them, most likely to wave down the incoming aircraft that flew overhead loudly enough to shake snow from the branches of the trees.  
  
Sienna rubbed her arms to ward off the cold. The adrenaline had died down and now she was acutely aware of how frigid it was. The Bullhead was rickety and obviously had no heating system, and the cold, lifeless metal interior did nothing to calm her nerves. She followed Chloe to where the older girl laid Cole out along with Johan and Damian on thin cots and immediately sat by their sides on an old crate. A sudden exhaustion overwhelmed her and she buried her face in her hands.  
  
Everything had fallen apart and she had no idea what to do.  
  


* * *

  
**Authors' Notes  
  
Teninshigen = (T) / PSIness11 = (N) / TheLonelyWillow = (W) / xanothos = (X)  
  
(T) Hi, I'm Teninshigen and I'm the writer behind Damian. Thanks for taking the time to read the first real chapter of this. Trying to coordinate a single piece of writing with four people is tricky, but we had some fun doing this and it could have gone a lot worse in our opinion. The 'Prologue' arc will last about until the team enter Beacon - so about a year, timeline wise. Mostly we'll be covering the highlights so that we don't take too long getting to the start of RWBY. If you have any constructive criticism, by all means share it; we've not tried anything like this before and while we try, we can't guarantee we'll catch everything that could detract from the story's quality. That being said, I hope this was at least an entertaining way to spend some of your time, and I hope it remains as such into the future.  
  
(X) Hey all. Teninshigen pretty much said everything I would've said, so let me just mention that 'Johan' is me. Also, I'd like to take the time to thank Teninshigen, PSIness11, and TheLonelyWillow for working with me on this; I had the idea to do a RWBY Team Collab SI after reading Teninshigen and PSIness11's collab, and all three of them have been an absolute ** _ **treat**_   **to work with.  
  
(N)This has been a joy to write! When this idea was proposed to me, I knew jack shit about RWBY. Hence why Cole knows nothing about the web series. After being forced to watch it, I have fallen in love. I have also decided to take it upon myself to explore some characters of the show as well. In particular, I will be ** _ **thoroughly**_ **exploring Neo's character, wink, wink.  
  
(W) This'll be the first fic I've ever posted! ...well, co-posted. Hopefully that'll change, but for now I'm happy to work on this with my boys; they're all the best and really awesome motivation. I enjoyed working on this and I hope everyone will enjoy reading~ Feel free to ask us anything! **


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